IT would be a shame if when the nostalgia industry gets stuck into the 1990s, the decade was only remembered for retro Britpop bands and the stage-managed playground spats between Blur and Oasis.

It was also a time when a wave of artists who were first turned on to music by club culture found innovative ways to break down the boundaries between the club dancefloor, the NME-reading festival rock crowd and the Top Forty singles chart - ways as diverse as the Prodigy's electronic punk mayhem and the moody blues of Bristol bands such as Massive Attack.

Alongside fellow British electronica boffins Leftfield, Underworld, and Death In Vegas, The Chemical Brothers were leaders of the pack. They were obsessed with early hip-hop, and electronic music and with the psychedelic experiments of Tomorrow Never Knows-era Beatles - drafting in unlikely mates from the rock world, from Noel Gallagher to The Flaming Lips, as guest vocalists.

Singles 93-03 takes in 13 tracks from the sparse big beats and squelchy acid electronics of early floor-fillers Song To The Siren and Chemical Beats, through perfectly-formed singles like Leave Home, Setting Sun and Block Rockin' Beats, to the spectacular instrumental blow-out The Private Psychedelic Reel.

The accompanying CD of rarities and live tracks is certainly worth hearing, especially the collaboration with One Inch Punch.

There are omissions - where's Life Is Sweet (which was a single)? And it misses out the Brothers' inspired collaborations with Beth Orton, in favour of Richard Ashcroft's pompous booming (The Test).

It's a good retrospective package, but really, just buying the first two Chemical Brothers albums, Exit Planet Dust and Dig Your Own Hole, would tell the story better.

Updated: 09:07 Thursday, October 09, 2003