What Happened To Underworld?

[IDEM]

^ I remember that it was raining and Radiohead were playing in those rain ponchos out of solidarity with the crowd or something. Yeah, could be that they were on at the same time as the Chem Bros, cause I just saw a couple of minutes of their gig before I prolly had to rush off to the tent. In exchange, I missed Dave Clarke and the Butthole Surfers, must have been a good reason for that ... Damn, that was a long time ago ... /off topic

[dcom]

Underworld, eh? I remember holding my breath (figuratively, natch) waiting to pick up Dubnobasswithmyheadman from the post and I've played the vinyl so many times it crackles. Second Toughest In The Infants, Beaucoup Fish both have a very, very special place in my heart. After that, Underworld dropped out of my radar and the next thing I knew Barking was out and I was chewing my face off to Scribble and the post-rave adulthood-negating avin' it large flashbacks it gave me; at that point I traced back to A Hundred Days Off, an album I listened to at least once every day on our 21 day Interrail trip around Europe - I was listening to Dinosaur Adventure 3D on the train when we arrived in Venice, FFS the feels. Oblivion With Bells and Barbara Barbara are nice, but I have no special attachment to them. The multi-disc special extended editions of the first three albums are really, REALLY essential to any and all Underworld enthusiasts. I've passed on Drift until today, and will probably be having it on heavy rotation for the next umpteen days.

Nothing happened to Underworld, it's just that time is passing. At least they're not boring ad nauseam like Jeff Mills.

Never seen them live, though.

Edited June 23, 2020 by dcom

[IDEM]

On 6/23/2020 at 10:05 PM, dcom said:

Underworld, eh? I remember holding my breath (figuratively, natch) waiting to pick up Dubnobasswithmyheadman from the post and I've played the vinyl so many times it crackles. Second Toughest In The Infants, Beaucoup Fish both have a very, very special place in my heart. After that, Underworld dropped out of my radar and the next thing I knew Barking was out and I was chewing my face off to Scribble and the post-rave adulthood-negating avin' it large flashbacks it gave me; at that point I traced back to A Hundred Days Off, an album I listened to at least once every day on our 21 day Interrail trip around Europe - I was listening to Dinosaur Adventure 3D on the train when we arrived in Venice, FFS the feels. Oblivion With Bells and Barbara Barbara are nice, but I have no special attachment to them. The multi-disc special extended editions of the first three albums are really, REALLY essential to any and all Underworld enthusiasts. I've passed on Drift until today, and will probably be having it on heavy rotation for the next umpteen days.

Nothing happened to Underworld, it's just that time is passing. At least they're not boring ad nauseam like Jeff Mills.

Never seen them live, though.

I just relistened to Dubnobasswithmyheadman, and I had totally forgotten how good it was because when Second Toughest ... came out, it was like the album I had always been waiting for and kind of eclipsed its predecessor. But man, what an album. Immediately bought he box sets of both which I had somehow missed when they came out.

[chenGOD]

https://underworldlive.com/

If you haven't already signed up to their mailing list (which you should - it's not very spammy at all and you find out about all sorts of things) they're enticing you with a free download of a great performance of Two Months Off.

Pretty Music for Me

[Thu Zaw]

Bloody loved them when I was young. Liked half of Beaucoup Fish. Nothing after that (I did buy Barbara, but only played it once).

I loved a lot of their 12" releases and b-sides

Cherry Pie 

Deep Pan 

Tin There

Moaner 

 

Jumbo is my fave track.

Saw them live for first time two years ago. They played a lot of classics. It was great.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Thu Zaw

[beerwolf]

9 hours ago, Thu Zaw said:

Bloody loved them when I was young. Liked half of Beaucoup Fish. Nothing after that (I did but Barbara, but only played it once).

I loved a lot of their 12" releases and b-sides

Cherry Pie 

Deep Pan 

Moaner 

 

Jumbo is my fave track.

Saw them live for first time two years ago. They played a lot of classics. It was great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discovered Cherry Pie a few weeks ago. Super good track. 
Underworld definitely have lots of hidden gems to discover away from the main albums,  and speaking of cherries I would recommend cherry picking some tracks from the Drift series. There are maybe a dozen flecks of gold to discover, if you look close enough. 

Edited May 21, 2021 by beerwolf

[Extralife]

6 hours ago, beerwolf said:

Discovered Cherry Pie a few weeks ago. Super good track. 
Underworld definitely have lots of hidden gems to discover away from the main albums,  and speaking of cherries I would recommend cherry picking some tracks from the Drift series. There are maybe a dozen flecks of gold to discover, if you look close enough. 

I’d say more than a dozen. Drift was a really special return to form, IMO.

[scumtron]

I took a break after Beaucoup Fish and started listening again when Barbara was released, so I have no idea what 2000-2015 sounds like. If Rah and Lowburn from Barbara are total bangers. Drift was a mixed bag imo, but I suggest buying some glowsticks and a playlist with:

-Another silent way

-Universe of can when back

-Appleshine (Film Edit) 

-Threat of Rain

-Brussels

-Soniamode

-This must be drum street

-Listen to their no

-Schipol test

-Border country

-Give me the room

-Appleshine Continuum (the 47 min version)

[purlieu]

Drift was what it was, a huge warts-and-all collection of material recorded over a year. It couldn't possibly have all been great, there are a couple of real stinkers and a few of b-side quality at best, but the bulk of it's very good, and there's more than an album's worth of top-tier classic Underworld in there.

There are far more brilliant tracks than these, but this is what I came up with when trying to structure a 'typical' Underworld album, slightly moody opener, big banger afterwards, couple of singles, moody break, late-running banger and a sedate, emotive ending:

1. Appleshine
2. Another Silent Way / Drift Poem / Better Than Diamonds
3. Border Country
4. Listen to Their No
5. Dune
6. Brilliant Yes That Would Be
7. S T A R
8. Schiphol Test
9. Custard Speedtalk

If they'd put that out as a 75 minute album, it would be my top 3 UW albums.

[Himelstein]

https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Trip-Hop-Test-Part-One/release/1266687
 

Wasn’t sure if anyone had posted about this, but it’s got an awesome Underworld track on it, where they go by Lemon Interrupt- Minneapolis. This is one of my favorite albums of all time.

[Thu Zaw]

23 minutes ago, Himelstein said:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Trip-Hop-Test-Part-One/release/1266687
 

Wasn’t sure if anyone had posted about this, but it’s got an awesome Underworld track on it, where they go by Lemon Interrupt- Minneapolis. This is one of my favorite albums of all time.

I feel like I totally had this CD, but that's not how I remember the cover

 

Edit: Had to look it up. This is the CD I had. Same vibes.

https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Journey/release/76270

Edited May 21, 2021 by Thu Zaw

[Himelstein]

4 hours ago, Thu Zaw said:

I feel like I totally had this CD, but that's not how I remember the cover

 

Edit: Had to look it up. This is the CD I had. Same vibes.

https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Journey/release/76270

Damn, that looks killer, I’m gonna track it down. 

[toaoaoad]

A Hundred Days Off doesn't deserve all the hate it gets in this thread.  I think the context made people biased: coming after a huge peak in their career, and coming after a live compilation celebrating their greatest hits etc... Pretty expectation-heavy time for it to be a banger. Sure it has a few filler/wtf tracks but what album of theirs hadn't? I think most of the tunes are really solid and I think of them as classics along with dubno/second toughest/beaucoup fish and honourable mention pearls girl ep. Oblivion with Bells is where they started to flop for me. That one is all over the place and not in a good way. Somebody else mentioned it started to sound like they were imitating themselves. Beautiful Burnout is a really strong track tho imo, the extended version is the best way to go... even if it feels like "Underworld does Underworld" they do it really well in this case. 

And yeah it has all been a bit patchy since then. Seems like less and less quality control on Karl's end. Drift was awesome to follow along... and I get that the point was to be loose, but most of those tracks would be better off as instrumentals imo lol 

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by toaoaoad

[EdamAnchorman]

Like a few of you, I stopped paying serious attention after Beaucoup Fish, but still bought the Drift boxed set and Dubnobass & Second Toughest boxed sets, and have been getting back into them recently.

Recently gave Barbara... a serious listen and I really love it, especially with the bonus track from the Japanese release.

[Soloman Tump]

Karl recently posted a load of videos on Instagram of him with his acoustic guitar. 

These are lovely.

But

I hope he and Rick still have the energy for live shows once reality 2.0 begins. They be no spring chickens no more.

Big up Underworld forever. Even the cheesy trance of Diamond Jigsaw from Barking is an absolute belter. 

 

[NewSchoolScience]

Everything went badly downhill after Second Toughest

[LooseLink]

On 5/22/2021 at 12:42 AM, Himelstein said:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Trip-Hop-Test-Part-One/release/1266687
 

Wasn’t sure if anyone had posted about this, but it’s got an awesome Underworld track on it, where they go by Lemon Interrupt- Minneapolis. This is one of my favorite albums of all time.

They could easily compile all the early techno era Underworld and Lemon Interrupt material into an album if they wanted.

You know what would be interesting though for them now: if they re-created both Change The Weather and Underneath The Radar, the two albums before Dubnobass, upgrade them and make them more techno, invite collaborators like Kettama or those on Barking etc. That would be interesting to listen to. It honestly blew me away when I realized DubnoBass was actually the third album. These first two albums seem widely neglected. Some of it actually sounds catchy. Underneath The Radar 2024.... why not?:

 

Edited March 10 by LooseLink

[iococoi]

 

[Himelstein]

On 3/10/2024 at 3:28 AM, LooseLink said:

They could easily compile all the early techno era Underworld and Lemon Interrupt material into an album if they wanted.

You know what would be interesting though for them now: if they re-created both Change The Weather and Underneath The Radar, the two albums before Dubnobass, upgrade them and make them more techno, invite collaborators like Kettama or those on Barking etc. That would be interesting to listen to. It honestly blew me away when I realized DubnoBass was actually the third album. These first two albums seem widely neglected. Some of it actually sounds catchy. Underneath The Radar 2024.... why not?:

 

Yeah, those albums aren’t bad at all, imo. Tbh they have kinda aged well. Totally agree, they should make new releases for them like that

[Walter Ostanek]

On 3/10/2024 at 3:28 AM, LooseLink said:

Underneath The Radar 2024.... why not?:

 

That would be brilliant honestly

Always got It Bites vibes from that track, maybe just because it's 6/8 like Calling All The Heroes (banger)

hyde/smith it bites remix album?