Underworld (band)
Underworld are a British electronic music group formed in 1987 in Cardiff, Wales[1] and the principal collaborative project of Karl Hyde and Rick Smith. Prominent former members include Darren Emerson, from 1990 to 2000, and Darren Price, as part of the live band from 2005 to 2016.
Underworld
- Lemon Interupt
- Steppin' Razor
- Mr. and Mrs. Christmas
Cardiff, Wales
1987–present
- Bryn Burrows
- Alfie Thomas
- Baz Allen
- Pascal Consoli
- Darren Emerson
After briefly performing as a funk and synth-pop outfit, resulting in two albums between 1988 and 1989, Underworld gained prominence after reshaping into a dance and techno band, releasing albums including Dubnobasswithmyheadman (1994), Second Toughest in the Infants (1996) and Beaucoup Fish (1999), as well as singles "Born Slippy Nuxx" and "Dark & Long (Dark Train)". Known for their atmospheric, progressive compositions, Hyde's cryptic and stream of consciousness lyrics, and dynamic live performances, Underworld have influenced a wide range of artists and have been featured in soundtracks and scores for films, television, and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
History[edit]
The Screen Gemz, Freur, and Underworld Mk1[edit]
In the late 1970s, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith formed a band in Cardiff called the Screen Gemz, which was influenced by Kraftwerk and reggae.[2][3] They were joined by bassist Alfie Thomas, drummer Bryn Burrows, and keyboardist John Warwicker in forming Freur. The band signed to CBS Records and released Doot-Doot (1983). Freur disbanded in 1986 after CBS withheld the UK release of their followup album, Get Us out of Here.[4]
In 1987, Hyde, Smith, Thomas, Burrows and bassist Baz Allen formed Underworld, named after the 1985 horror film Underworld, which was scored by Freur.[5] Underworld signed to Sire Records and released the album Underneath the Radar in 1988. Following the departure of Burrows, they released another album, Change the Weather, in 1989. This lineup, referred to by the group as "Underworld Mk1", disbanded in 1990.[5]
Emerson's arrival and Underworld Mk2[edit]
After a break—to concentrate on, among other things, art/design project Tomato—Hyde and Smith recruited DJ Darren Emerson and signed to Steven Hall's Junior Boys Own label. After several releases and remixes as Lemon Interupt and Steppin' Razor, they readopted the Underworld moniker. They produced danceable techno as a trio ("Underworld Mk2").
The addition of Emerson completed Underworld's techno/rock fusion and seemed to eliminate the pop elements in the original duo's work. Their first album, Dubnobasswithmyheadman, was considered more accessible than the group's earlier material and crossed a large spectrum of dance music. The signature Hyde lyrics were in place: poetic, hypnotic and whispered; mixing conventional song writing with the use of found material from overheard conversations, answering machine recordings and the like. Hyde had been the lead singer in Underworld Mk1 but the original Hyde/Smith dance material was lyric-free as was most of the electronic music emerging from the aftermath of acid house.
Trainspotting and breakthrough[edit]
The band's 1996 album, Second Toughest in the Infants, was their second studio album with Emerson and achieved a degree of commercial success, due in part to its release coinciding with that of the film Trainspotting. The film featured "Dark & Long (Dark Train)", as well as the band's most commercially successful track to date, "Born Slippy Nuxx", which was originally released only as a B-side of a single and does not appear on the Second Toughest album. The single and the album showed Underworld maturing as a trio, mixing elements of techno, house, drum and bass and experimental music. "Born Slippy .NUXX" is one of Underworld's best-known tracks and is celebrated as one of the greatest dance tracks of the decade. The track has since sold over a million copies and appeared on countless compilations, mashups and remixes.
Beaucoup Fish era[edit]
After the release of fifth studio album Beaucoup Fish in 1999, Hyde declared in his interviews that he had sorted out earlier problems with alcoholism but all the members admitted that the sessions had been fraught with problems, with the individual members working in their own studios and only communicating via mixes of the raw material passed back and forth on DAT. After the release of the album a large number of mixes of the album tracks seemed to surface on singles, magazine promotional CDs and similar ephemeral formats perhaps indicating the number of revisions the tracks had gone through to get to the point where they were acceptable to all three. The album's name derives from a sample of a Cajun fisherman in Louisiana on the track "Jumbo". The band originally wanted to call the album Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be Underworld (a catchphrase used by contestants on the UK ITV programme Stars in Their Eyes) but were convinced by their record company, Junior Boy's Own, that the name would not be easily understood outside the UK. Finally, after all the singles had been released, a box set, Beaucoup Fish Singles, which was a retrospective of all 4 singles came out.
Underworld embarked on a well-received tour in 1999, which resulted in a live CD and DVD drawn from several dates on the tour. Called Everything, Everything, the project captured the live Underworld experience very faithfully. A companion DVD was released separately soon after the album's release. The DVD features live footage of the band mixed with videography and artistic effects by the design group Tomato. The DVD also features several songs not on the album: "Moaner", "Puppies", "Kittens" and "Rowla". The disco scene in Vanilla Sky features Underworld's 1993 hit "Rez".[6] Their tour was also documented by Danish film director Helene Moltke-Leth and shown on The Danish National Broadcasting Corporation (DR).[7]
Emerson's departure and back to a duo[edit]
After the release and promotion of Everything, Everything, Emerson decided to leave Underworld to focus on his solo projects and record label. Hyde and Smith decided to continue as a duo. They recorded a new album, A Hundred Days Off, released to general approval. Despite its status as the band's first studio album since Emerson's departure, its general sound and feel was, perhaps surprisingly for many Underworld fans, not dissimilar to the previous albums on which Emerson had had input. In 2003, a 2-disc anthology entitled 1992–2002 was released. This was the first appearance on an album of previously unavailable single tracks and B-sides, such as "Bigmouth", "Spikee", "Dirty" and "8 Ball". While touring in the summer and autumn of 2005, the duo was joined on stage by Darren Price, a DJ and producer who had remixed Underworld releases in the past.
During their tour, they released a 3-CD set Live in Tokyo, which was sold after the concert in Japan and later sold online. In late 2005, they released two compilations of new songs with accompanying photographs on Underworld Live, in a series entitled Riverrun. These were only released online, with no physical release (except for a promo CD). On 5 June 2006, they released their third installment, and on 10 July 2006, they released The Misterons Mix, a special retrospective mix composed of Riverrun tracks, as an exclusive free download for customers that had purchased all three Riverrun releases.
In September 2006, Underworld released five limited edition (10,000 copies each) 12" vinyl releases, containing remixes of various Riverrun tracks. These tracks were also made available for purchase by digital download on the Beatport website. Later in 2006, the band teamed up with Gabriel Yared to compose the music score to Anthony Minghella's film Breaking and Entering. The soundtrack was released in the UK on 6 November, and in the USA on 5 December.
Influence on video game composers[edit]
Underworld have been mentioned as an influence by a number of video game composers, such as Nobuyoshi Sano,[34] Andrew Sega,[35] Jesper Kyd,[36] Michiel van den Bos,[37] and Rom Di Prisco.[38]
Charity[edit]
In 2008, the band participated in an album called Songs for Tibet, "to express our support for the Tibetan people... at a time when the eyes of the world are on China" (referring to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing). The album was issued on 5 August via iTunes and on 19 August in music stores around the world.[39]
Studio albums
EPs
Current members
Former members
Touring members