Melatonin Brothers

Once in awhile, an elpee is so opaque sounding to my ears that I like to re-imagine the tracks as a series of short avant-garde films, in an attempt to make it interesting. “Further,” the latest from The Chemical Brothers, is one of those elpeez, so I just wrote some ideas down…

“Snow” – A damaged Emergency Broadcast System test tone awakens one morning to find itself being kidnapped by a Siren. Not a tornado siren (that would make too much sense) but a real, singing siren, as in Homer’s Odyssey. Stars Stephanie Dosen as the Siren.

“Escape Velocity” – Pete Townsend’s Lowrey Berkshire Deluxe TBO-1 organ doubles as a space vessel and musical instrument in this bit of sci-fi silliness.

“Another World” – Stephanie Dosen takes the female lead again as a space hippie who tries with all her might to conjure another world, presumably the result of wildly overactive serotonergic neurons.

“Dissolve” – Xeroxed notes from The Edge’s guitar find themselves dancing with over-modulated programmed beats that end up somewhere near Bangalore, India in this animated romp.

“Horse Power” – A lazy yet industrious robot thwarts its programming tasks and tricks a horse into doing its work. Hilarity ensues. Tom Rowlands stars as The Robot and Billy The Horse as The Horse.

“Swoon” – A synthesizer that dreams of life as a porpoise finally gets its wish in this undersea adventure.

“K+D+B” – Tragic tale of a Tiki God who surfed all the way from Hawaii to Hollywood, opened up the largest Volkswagen dealership in Los Angeles, only to die choking on his own vomit in some alley off of Sunset Strip. Rated R for language, drug use and never-ending sex.

“Wonders Of The Deep” An octopus takes home a diving bell to meet its deeply prejudiced family in this wacky undersea animated farce. Tom Rowlands narrates.