If you have not been living under a rock the past two decades and love your electronic music, then you will without a doubt know just who and what Chicane is all about. But for the uninitiated, let us give you a little briefing on who he is, and why he deserves your attention.
Chicane is arguably one of the most successful trance music DJ / producer / songwriters in the world. His debut album Far From The Maddening Crowds is considered to be one of the most valued trance music releases of all time. He scored a number one hit single during the height of the late 90’s club scene boom with ‘Don’t Give Up’ which includes guest vocals from Bryan Adams, and has also gained a further top 20 UK hit singles since 1996. He has also garnered worldwide critical acclaim with all of his previous albums with varying degrees of success, and is often cited as one of the most looked up to inspirations within the trance and house music community.
So with all this in mind, it takes us to the present day – Chicane has just released his ninth album The Sum Of Its Parts, and he sounds just as revitalised and as important as he ever has done. An album filled with 12 strong collaborative efforts that exceed the sun-kissed boundaries of blissed out trance euphoria, and border on to the realms of crossover appeal in the hope of being able to reach out to greater and further audiences.
The Sum Of Its Parts in essence is equal part life-affirming, emotive, and uplifting in the most organic way that electronic music can possibly translate.
The album is filled with what are sure to be some of the summertime anthems that are begging to be put on the turntables in every party and festival that warrants its attention. Take for example the brilliant ‘1000 Suns (Soundprank Edited Vocal Mix)‘ featuring Christian Burns – an 80s synth inspired dreampop trance wonder with some truly soaring vocals and choruses that you can easily fall in love with. This song along is enough to be on the soundtrack to your summer. ‘Still With Me‘ featuring Bo Bruce is another incredible feature to which Bruce’s vocals are so silky smooth, that they border on the verge of hypnotic. An incredible yet uplifting trance composition that can even be deemed meditative with its soothing tones and pulses.
There are even songs on here in the form of opening track ‘Eglises‘, the almost celestial album highlight ‘Orleans‘ featuring Lisa Gerrard, and the surprisingly experimental ‘Tuesdays‘ featuring City Lies and Mary Zain, that actually take a step further in to even more experimental musical territory which is a little out of Chicane’s comfort zone, but yet still sounds all the more poignant for it. More notably the latter being ‘Tuesdays‘, which there are even small elements of post-rock! But this is what has to be applauded with The Sum Of Its Parts, because Chicane is further experimenting with the use of non-electronic instruments, which can also be translated in to the live setting by implementing the DJ and a live band to successfully recreate nearly every song on this album as a unit.
There are some songs on this album that do sound a little out of place and seem far weaker than others. Take the closing song ‘Photograph‘ featuring Christian Burns, ‘Oxygen‘ featuring Paul Aiden, and ‘One More Time‘ featuring Duane Harden. Whilst they still stand as good songs, compared to the other instrumental and collaborative tracks they just seem rather mediocre and somewhat slows down The Sum Of Its Parts flow.
The other criticism that can be noted here with this album is that it is essentially a collaborative compilation, with great songs to offer. But, there seems to be some bland filler in amongst the killer tracks, and in that respect it loses a bit of the magic that can be clearly heard on here.
Overall, Chicane has yet again produced another quality album that by all means deserves your utmost attention. This could well be the album that may see him crossover in to another audience, and for another generation of people to learn about and appreciate his works. But one thing for certain is that The Sum Of Its Parts is merely but another jewel in Chicane’s crown, and whilst the consistency errors tend to restrict the overall magnitude of this album, you can bet that this will only let Chicane soar to further heights unlike we have previously seen before.
