Why I like Underworld

There are two reasons:
1. it's great music
2. I like the way Karl Hyde is wired

There is no question that Underworld is my kind of music. But music is a form of expression - it's very personal, intimate - and in creating it, you are showing and sharing something of yourself and your soul. This is not true of a lot of the crap music that is out there, obviously - but Underworld are not in that superficial class. I've always liked music that is closer to poetry - a flow of meaning, of thoughts, of concepts and ideas. Those things set to music. Marillion and Fish have lyrics that I love, but the music was always a compromise for me - I liked it, but I didn't love it. Underworld has the type trance, ambiant, music that I like, but with lyrics that grab your attention. I'm not doing Underworld justice here - let me hand you over to Karl...

I gave up long ago on trying to please everyone, check out the lyrics on the ‘Underneath the radar’ and ‘Change the Weather’ albums, now ‘that’ is ‘bullshit’ people pleasing low-grade pop wordage. Yeah, that’s what you get when Hyde tries to be populist, didn’t work then, and it won’t work now, it’s not what I do.

I collect fragments:
Things overheard, S
een,
Smelt,
Tasted,
And experienced.

I collect them, write them down, along with the thoughts they inspire. To some these phrases look disconnected, but, if I say, “this was a walk through New York city”, “this was a walk from the Ship on Wardour Street to Tottenham Court road tube station” , “this was a journey through a dark head” and we call them “Mmm skyscraper I love you”, Born Slippy” and “Dirty Epic” the fragments have a context. Then if we imbed them in sound and groove that’s evocative and maybe a counterpoint to the mood of the text, you have that magical thing that happens when Rick and me get in the studio and let fly. What I collect and bring back to the studio reflects my state of mind, the place I’m in and what, of all the stuff going on around me, I’m focusing on at the time.

"I'm a big sister and I'm a girl and I'm a princess and this is my horse."
Was something over-heard, like: “second toughest in the infants”
“I am just a waitress”
“Thunder,…lightning ahead…”
“Don’t put your hand where you wouldn’t put your face!”
K.O.S.
“…did you wash it?”
“You don’t even have to iron your own stuff”
“Do you like a blue boost?, try a blue boost”
oh yey, brothers and sisters etc, etc,

Most of the Media world news/documentary presentations I’ve seen present the World in big chunks, loud stories, amazing things, wow! wow!, woo!, woo!. Media is generally drawn to ‘big-ness’, the thought being that, “it sells”. I prefer the details, the small things, the fragments. It’s the details, the little things, the seemingly insignificant things that bring richness to my vague memories of places, people and experiences. So, along with a note book, I started carrying a camera, photographing the stuff that always caught my eye, but which I knew I’d forget. It’s was easy to remember the bigger picture, it’s the details that I’d forget. What I was constantly drawn to were the fragments that described the World on a human scale, at a time when I was deeply frustrated by how countries and cultures were being reduced to easily digestible icons, images and sound-bites from which many an ill informed prejudice has sprung.

All the big news moments are made up of tiny events, and within these events I’m drawn to fragments, objects, a quality of light, a facial expression, a collection of stuff in a shop window or in an alley or thrown out onto the hard shoulder of a road; graffiti, a sign, and all manner of marks left by unknown hands.

To me they are beautiful, intriguing, funny, tragic, inspiring, and they’ve been mounting up here at home, collecting dust for years. Very little of what I collected used to see the light of day; those that did came out in Underworld tracks, or as the ‘Skyscraper’ book, a tomato book, or (on rare occasions) in exhibitions. These were just the tip of an iceberg, there was and still is a load of unpublished fragments (hence, why John Warwicker and I have been jamming on the follow-up (!) to ‘Skyscraper’, based on dark times on and under the streets of London, leading up to and beyond the time of Born Slippy.).

The internet, gave us another place to publish. Somewhere unfettered by scheduling and financial considerations, somewhere outside of the usual underworld/tomato processes, somewhere that allowed us to have an idea, and be able to make it available immediately, and somewhere we could publish for free without charging anyone or having to make compromises in order for the work to get out there. We wanted a little freedom in the domain of releasing work, some play time, as a balance to the way in which we normally work. When we’re not on the road, that important physical contact with people is greatly diminished. The internet, and knowing that some one, even if it’s only one person outside of the studio, some one in there in the World, can see something we’ve made today, means that we no longer feel isolated when we’re in the studio. We have the freedom to broadcast without it having to accommodate any third parties, and the beauty of it is that no one is expected to pay for these fragments, they’re free, not major releases, not earth shattering, deep or crafted for months on end, no press campaigns and no claim that they are high art or deeply emotive poetry; they are what they appear to be, the fragments of my journey’s, emotional responses to the little jewels my dumb head gets a buzz over. If you don’t like them, that’s cool. This would be a teeth grindingly boring place if we all had the same taste.

Thanks for you support and inspiration, keep on keeping on.

karl

This is Keith again - hi. I hope I've whetted your appetite to hear/learn more - have a look at http://www.dirty.org/underworld/. Another nice thing about Underworld is that they really encourage you to listen to, and experiment with, their music. If you want to download some Underworld music to listen to, go to http://www.dirty.org/underworld/fan.html. This is free, legal, and encouraged.

Enjoy!