Underworld - Classic or Dud?

I recommmend _dubnobass..._ because that's the best Underworld album and it's a genuinely good album. _Second Toughest..._ isn't nearly as strong and hearing "Push Upstairs" and "Jumbo" put me off of getting _Beaucoup Fish_, which I'll admit might have been a mistake because "King Of Snake" and "Cups" both rank up there among the best songs they've ever done. (But is it another case where the single is stormin' and the album is limpid? I don't know.)

But "Beaucoup Fish" is worth getting. Both "Push Upstairs" improve the more familiar you are with them - both seem insanely repetitive to begin with, but I found both grew on me enormously once I went walking around the city with them on my headphones. Plus, you're missing out on "Cups" (deep house par excellence), "Bruce Lee" (hip hop meets Detroit techno), "Kittens" (a storming epic), "Something Like A Mama" (jungle-inflected track like "Pearl's Girl" with its tongue in its cheek) and of course "King Of Snake". It's a strong album.

Admittedly, I am biased (met them live several times) and I am more of an ambient/idm fan (ala FSOL & AFX) & some trance (Juno Reactor), and have been for over a decade, so there's your caveat and explanation of my fangirl-ishness.

I could listen to that all day. Or at least for about 4 minutes, when I'd get really irritated and want to bust up something. Still.

For the most part I find Underworld a bit boring but I still have their CDs because I like some of the songs. They're really not a classic or a dud, to be honest. They're more an existance.

Strange - that's what initially attracted me to Underworld; and was the first step I took towards electronic/dance music - I hadn't heard any interesting throwaway cutup soundbytes-strung-together fractured- narrative stuff before, and the music seemed to be the perfect accompaniment to this - I couldn't imagine Karl Hyde-isms succeeding over a guitar backdrop etc. And as someone a very long way away indeed from Underworld's BritCity; it seemed oh so very exotic&mysterious&sexy. Inauthenticity of musical tourism, and all that guff; but Underworld were something I could be palpably excited by; and a doorway to a whole new world of music, apologies for RAGING CLICHES.

And I love Karl Hyde's lyrics.

i like all of their albums but [i]dubnobass..[/i] is defintely my favourite. i love the fact that the albums contain pure dance floor killers next to more downtempo tracks like [i]dirty epic[/i] and [i] m.e[/i]

they are also jaw-droppingly fantastic live - i've seen them seven times - and they were really the pioneers of taking dance music into the live arena and in so doing paved the way for bands like [b] orbital, chemical brothers[/b] and [/b]the prodigy[/b] to follow in their footsteps.

there's plenty of their live gigs available on audiogalaxy including the superb european club gig. fans should also check out [url] http://www.underworldlive.com[/url] which is an official site where you can download soundboard recordings of some of their gigs as well as some recent studio stuff such as the blue mountain sessions.

Those two tracks are great. I think I need to live with them a little more before they really sink in, but so far they're much better than, say, the ambient tracks on the "Pearl's Girl" single. (None of them can touch "Tongue", though.)

now, on to my ancedote, which is about how the promo vinyl we got for 'King of Snake' was a 12" and os I put it on at 33 and it was SUPER FUNKY like WOW until Karl's vox came in and it sounded like he was a dying robot from planet Opium. So I put it on 45 and it turned into house music, which while quite good was not nearly as enjoyable as the 33 version.

echo...

I also went to one of the concerts (Broadcast on Radio 1!!!!!) at around the time of "Dubnobass...", (The same night as they found the body of Kurt Cobain!!!!) and it was grebt/GRATE/etc!!!!! Unlike the recent "live" album, it was one big long DJ mix style jam, mixing in various bits of their songs. The track on the live album which mixes "Cowgirl" and "Rez" is nearest equivalent- imagine a whole concert like that with most of the tracks from "Dubnobass..." and an early version "Born Slippy"!!!! (I've actually got a tape of it somewhere, taped of the radio...)

Anyways, Underworld is still classic because did I mention that "Tin There" is basically my favorite techno barnburner ever?

The kickass house/blues romp "Big Mouth" (with some guy named Philadelphia Slim whom I've never heard of on harmonica!!) is another awesome underrated early Underworld song. Underworld kicks ass.

(I'm sorry I won't pimp out that article ever again, this is the millionth time, prob haven't written anything decent for free since, it was 18 months ago)

oh! during the intro of the first weekend's Born Slippy he said "this is for Yung Lean"

Mojave channel rebroadcasting right now... and you should be able to scrub this back til they take it down tonight or tomorrow.

Heard "Gene Pool" for the first time.. wow!

both of them were SO much more fired up than last week that a) the SF show must have absolutely demolished (2200 cap venue!!!) and b) booooo at no between-festivals tour

booooo at no between-festivals tour

ah well. That interview for the single release did say they'd be working on music "on tour"... so this leaves a bunch of time for that maybe. Whatever they're up to isn't ready to be announced.

I imagine *they* think of a week in California as being on tour - and possibly going home for a month before one more American festival gig as being in tour mode, too.

was it just me or did that second coachella weekend livestream hit even harder than week 1?

seems to be the consensus

both of them were SO much more fired up than last week that a) the SF show must have absolutely demolished (2200 cap venue!!!) and b) booooo at no between-festivals tour

― least said, sergio mendes (sic), Saturday, April 22, 2023 10:20 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

week two is in that archive.org folder too, I see

in lieu of any more in-between-Drift tracks, more archive on Darren Price's soundcloud: rough mix of Between Stars, and a desk tape of that time they did Move Any Mountain live with Mr C

denver luna
twenty seventh september pic.twitter.com/12wznNj12C

— Underworld (@underworldlive) September 13, 2023

thoughts and prayers to all the Underworld fans in Colorado, who thought this meant they were playing there

with luna

lol what is this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBZeQly_NZc

I mean it's really nice but what exactly are they doing right now

too short. hopefully a teaser for a long banging version. (you can see me trying to id this track after the show above.)

Regardless it was an odd choice to hype a short acapella a couple weeks out. Wonder if it'll have a merch drop.

yeah true

I thought they were playing a full version of this live and it was really good. maybe mixed it up with something else though

but yeah curious what their release plan is, kinda weird they haven't said anything since "Drift 2 coming soon" 4 years ago. I mean Covid happened so that's probably part of it

it's so good though

they're gonna release 3 or 4 different versions. 'luna luna luna luna' and all

there's a new song on the latest setlist called "techno shinkansen" that i can't wait to hear.

Did you hear a bootleg of it or are you just intrigued by the title?? I think Denki Groove have a song called that so yes I wanna hear it too

i love denver luna

I don’t really know Underworld at all and am only familiar with Hyde’s collabs with Eno but agree, this is terrific. I kind of wonder what it’s going to sound like when it (presumably) has instrumentation.

lol if THIS is the only UW song you know

oh they just announced the 'full' version is coming on 10/18

No I mean, everything else I’ve heard by them is … not like this at all. But this has a pretty exciting open and is kind of a weirdly through composed thing.

lol if THIS is the only UW song you know

it is! but definitely a track which might give you the totally wrong impression of what kind of band this is

though after Drift what kind of band are they exactly?

i also love denver luna.

well this is the best of the lot so far maybe one of the best tracks they've done ever really

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clUQ7cy_35Y

idk about 'one of the best tracks they've ever done' but it's pretty solid

like a slinkier "Border Country"

Man the drop that happens at 6:44 is teased for so long and when it finally happens it's actually kinda subtle. Good tho. Want remixes.

tour https://underworldlive.com/events

ha, i was gonna bump this thread for a different reason

Underworld for me have always fallen down due to Karl Hyde's lyrics - back-of-a-fag-packet undergraduate cut-up nonsense which at best just distracts and at worst actively spoils the music, turning it from wide-ranging and danceable into a nasty urban noir mess. And his wannabeatnik delivery nobs me off, too.
― Tom, Wednesday, October 18, 2000 8:00 PM (twenty-three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

the thing is, his timing was absolutely perfect. the early internet is an unseen character in those Underworld songs, to me.

i've seen a lot of stuff about how 'early mtv put a hip new wave club in every teenager's living room', and sure i roll my eyes but AOL was an awful lot like having a dive coffeehouse in my living room.

maybe it's me- the crowd i fell in with with were the type who published poetry e-zines and fantasized about nights drinking absinthe out of dixie cups with purple-haired drop outs, idk. but i think, for various reasons, people who spent a lot of time online then were more likely to be outsiders who rejected the mainstream culture, or were rejected. so underworld's cyberbeatnik identity connected them to the chatrooms as much as the dance clubs.

a nocturnal parallel world seemed to spring up.... we still spent time hatching plans on the internet that would play out in the realm of physical geography. like, the internet was a map to me, not a place. it felt like our whole generation was a community, and we would be able to float around crashing on people's couches who we met on AOL. i get that none of that was new or unique to the moment ("wannabeatnik"- yeah def) and part of it is just the optimism people have when they're young and it's still possible to one day become "successful".

but the possibility of a bohemian slacker utopia has since closed, i think. what's changed is how the people who seemed incapable of integrating themselves into the straight world and holding down a normal job are more likely now to eke out a living piecemeal through the "gig economy" of driving ubers and walking dogs etc. it seems less plausible now to get by without those connections to the mainstream overworld.

something something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LSxDPgV9sM

won't play for me

this better be the first of the banging denver luna remixes I've been waiting for

I've always liked his lyrics. maybe it's because I got into this band at the age of 13. I never thought they were that weird because I didn't know that much music. ditto for like, the guy from Cake, where it's really only now I realize how odd they were. I get why people don't like his lyrics but they do capture something pretty unique I think, particularly that night out feeling meeting people you'll never see again, always thinking what if...

that night out feeling meeting people you'll never see again

exactly

not having roots

are you listenin?
can you hear?

UNDERWORLD X KETTAMA 
fifteenth december pic.twitter.com/U6Ngxvkhq8

— Underworld (@underworldlive) December 10, 2023

This was better than I thought it would be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzqgGlyehLE

Underworld x Kettama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwSNXtzWER4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J91SR8wfAvU

another one with Kettama, doesn't really sound like UW but it's pretty sweet

I had a load of marking to do tonight and put on Everything, Everything to make it more bearable, and the version of Moaner on the DVD is fucking incredible isn't it I am only used to the CD, why the fuck was it not on the CD?

You've all heard this a thousand times I'm sure, but I hadn't until just now, because some brilliant person put the whole DVD on youtube a year ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h93w-28dVY

the whole Pinkpop 1999 show where that version of Moaner was filmed is on YT if you want more of a concert experience - (oh, look for Palladium Koln 1999 there as well for another treat)

it wasnt on the CD because it's already 80 minutes long and they had to cut something

god I hope we get a vinyl reissue of it one day, I still don't think anything's captured the pure euphoria of live electronic music as well as this album does

A remastered / expanded double CD would be just fine.