3/13/2023 0 Comments Dirty song ratingIt’s the perfect time to take stock of their accomplishments, two decades and counting, one song at a time. Their reunion sees them barely missing a beat, able to move mind, body, and soul as expertly as any Coachella-kid fave. Smith went on to soundtrack Boyle’s film Trance on his own, while Hyde cut a solo album and two acclaimed collaborations with ambient godhead Brian Eno. In the interim between albums, Smith and Hyde worked with Trainspotting director Danny Boyle on the score for his stage adaptation of Frankenstein and the music for his opening ceremony for the London Olympics. Though Barbara is the duo’s first real record in six years, they were hardly on hiatus. Like their premillennial contemporaries Radiohead and Massive Attack, Underworld both replicates the thrum of modern urban life in all its messiness and conjures the feeling that this mess can be transcended, provided you dance your ass off. Hyde’s breathy, often distorted vocals and elliptical lyrics alternate disarming emotional directness with decontextualized conversational snippets that evoke the overheard exchanges of strangers on the street - which in many cases is actually their origin, as Hyde would frequently take the tube around London, jotting down the drunken banter of his fellow passengers. Smith’s production combines Floydian scope with relentless rhythm, conveying the sensation of motion as powerfully as anything since Kraftwerk and Neu! made motorik happen. NUXX,” a Trainspotting soundtrack standout that became one of the ’90s’ greatest dance songs and remains an indispensable staple of their countless live shows, Underworld have a catalog as deep and varied as any of the long, twisty trance/techno/house melanges it comprises. Though they’re best known for “Born Slippy. Both men were in their mid-30s by the time they hit creative paydirt - the James Murphys of their day.Īnd once they clicked, they clicked hard. They renamed themselves Underworld after a forgotten Clive Barker horror flick they scored and recorded two albums of largely undistinguished alt-pop afterwards. They had a minor new-wave hit in 1983 with “ Doot Doot” under the name Freur. When they joined forces with young DJ Darren Emerson to release their ersatz debut Dubnobasswithmyheadman in 1994, they’d already been gigging together in one form or another for 14 years. That label is deceptive, if for no other reason than that there was never a time when Karl Hyde and Rick Smith weren’t senior figures in the scene. With eight studio albums of atmospheric electronica under their belt - the latest of which, Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future, comes out today - and both its members pushing 60, it’s tempting to refer to Underworld as the elder statesmen of EDM.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |