With the Chemical Brothers' first American gig this year occurring as late as December 2 in New York — followed three days later by a DJ set opening for U2 — it may seem to fans of the iconic English breakbeat techno team that 2000 has marked a lull in activity.

But even though duo Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons haven't been terribly visible Stateside of late, they're heading into the New Year with a flurry of activity at home and abroad.

On November 21, they released the seven-song Music: Response EP, their first output since releasing the single "Out of Control" more than a year ago. Continuing their tradition of balancing worldwide fame with local flavor, the Chemical Brothers also launched the first installment of a periodic club night in the basement of Glint — a Portuguese, members-only supper club on Portobello Road in London's Notting Hill section. There they spin records they love for an intimate crowd of 300 friends.

"It's ... quite a small club for us to DJ," Simons said. "It was originally because we felt weird about starting to DJ again, so we wanted to do [it for] a small crowd. The first one was pretty intense, very hot. It was the last day of summer, and people were just sort of melting. They'd come and go and say, 'Oh, it was very good, a bit hot.' We're doing another one for Christmas."

Rowlands and Simons also have begun preliminary work on their fourth album, the follow-up to 1999's hit Surrender, which they said is due sometime in late 2001. They'll go at it in earnest early next year, and although no themes have emerged yet, a few details have.

"We don't know quite what it is yet," Rowlands said, laughing. "Don’t know if it's good to have a concept or no concept. It's quite fluidy, a bit more funky than the other records. A lot of little bell sounds, Danny Elfman-type things going on. At this moment it's quite nice — just us in the studio sort of playing around. It's the bit of making music that's sort of relaxed."

At their set at New York's Centro-Fly, they previewed one track they're working on, tentatively titled "It Began in Africa," which Rowlands described as having "quite a lot of percussion, big, sweeping sort of stuff. Live conga playing, quite spaced out."

So have the Chemical Brothers been infected by the spirit of the legendary New York deep-house party Body & Soul?

"It's like Body & Soul, but really, really hard and twisted," Rowlands said. "It's like high-impact, full-on, but with more organic sounds, and quite intense, without the good vibe."

The new EP, named for Surrender's infectious, synth-pop lead track, contains two songs previously unreleased in the U.S., plus two remixes of the title track (including one by Lionrock's Justin Robertson) and two live cuts. The video for the album's third single, "Let Forever Be," which features Oasis' Noel Gallagher on vocals, also is included on the enhanced CD.

"You get to the stage of making music where you have these interesting bits of music that you can just listen to at home, or you can put 'em on a CD," Rowlands said of the EP. "But there's no sort of bigger meaning; it's not our new statement for the 21st century."

Two songs from the Surrender sessions, "Freak of the Week" and "Enjoyed," are available for the first time in the U.S. on the EP, the title cut of which is the fourth single off Surrender. A staple of the duo's recent DJ sets, including the New York show, "Enjoyed" is a sort of funked-up version of the album's "Out of Control," which features New Order's Bernard Sumner on vocals.

"It's like a version of 'Out of Control' that we put together in the editing room," Simons said, "sort of how the track originally sounded before Bernard got involved."

The two live tracks — Surrender's "Out of Control" and "Got Glint?" — were recorded at the Chems' headlining gig in the summer on the main stage of the Glastonbury Festival's second night, which was a highlight of the duo's year.

"It's like 100,000 people on this big hill, and you can see all the campfires, and it's really rolling beautiful countryside," Rowlands said. "In the hills you can see all these little tents and fires and stuff. It's a trip, it's brilliant."