Underworld

Whatever is in the Essex water it must be affecting the subconscious psyche out there. Plugging into Gaia ‘s zen-like mainframe seems somehow easier for them than it does for us Londoners. The wifi distortion of our metropolis is blurring the frequency. It must be, why else would Underworld’s oblique lyricist, Karl Hyde, claim the county as the home of his spirituality?

Underworld are synonymous with emotive melodies and tribal energy. They are also intrinsically tuned to fanatical demands and the consumption of art, where communication is unquestionably paramount. Hyde, and his partner Rick Smith, are exponents of diversified publishing. And now, he wants a chat with me. But not an old-fashioned tête-à-tête, or even over the age-old telephone. He’d rather convey his thoughts through a veil of cyber anonymity. Responses prepared and edited. Choosing not to adhere to the whim of spontineity. An Email conversation, futuristic Underworld at its trademark best.

Describing the aspects of his past that have guided him towards today, Hyde’s definitions are strikingly reminscent of his former “lager, lager, lager” approach. “Love of music of all genres & of groove & electronic sounds & film music & dub reggae & desert blues & delta blues & Miles Davis & great DJ’s” he begins, further adding, “& field recordings & radio noises & music of the street & street poetry & graffiti & marks on the roads & street language & conversations overheard & the noise of nothing & the noise of everything”. Obviously, the now world of Underworld lies eons away from yester-15-year, and yet the tone of the transmission is vaguely similar.

Firstly, he claims that Underworld are regular “two arm, two leg, two head” punters who love “ice hockey, football, motor racing, art, film, stuff of magic”. He even has “the scarf to prove it”. It’s clear the giddy complexities of his mood are as fleeting as they are important. I’ve caught him at his most playful. Delivering animated answers like he’s playing with Lego: “waking up” is what excites him; “No. 42, Planet Earth, The Real World, Today” is where he most likes to hang out; and, when pressed about guilty pleasures, he mockingly replies, “not guilty until proven innocent m’lord. Anyway, I was nowhere near it when it happened”. Watch out readers, we have a live one here.

In terms of productivity and creative exploration, Underworld’s electronic output is second to none. It exist side-by-side on a plain with Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk, standing knee-deep in an electic current.

The fifth studio album, Oblivion With Bells, was released last October and is meant, as Hyde adamantly entertains, for “people who like it enough to turn people onto it”. The lyrical content of his answers and the album are as meandering as one another.

Hyde’s stream of consciousness is seen throughout Oblivion’s epic tumult. His signature cloud of introspection wafts through ‘Faxed Invitation’ with the opening, “I don’t wanna get dirty, with two scoops, and white flakes and jelly, wrestling would do it, go down with the body, hugger stroking”. It also canters through the faculties of the mind in ‘Ring Road’, where punctuation and thought never meet and ideas are endlessly intertwined - “I want you to be the way I want you to be and when you're not it hurts me like shredded tape”.

The process of creating these lyrics and a melody are “all being worked on continually” Hyde reveals. “The music is being written and the words are being gathered daily”. Yet Hyde, when writing music, claims he does not transport to a cerebral time or place, instead staying “rooted in the moment – the groove – the melody – the sound – the vibe – the mood – the journey – now – as it is”.

Oblivion does not shy from the universal Underworldisms: the orchestral ambience, the rolling synths, the thumping basslines, the voyages of the mind, the compulsive intimacy of German minimal techno, it’s all there. Their most recent single, ‘Beautiful Burnout’, was the second to be dispensed from the album and its robotic whisperings are hypnotically caught in the realm of Kraftwerk and Laurie Anderson. As a swirling 8-minute endorphin rush it embodies, as Hyde explains, “a dark tube train ride out’ve the belly of the city to the outskirts. Trackside decorated with burned out cars”.

Painting images with sound and making words into pictures is symptomatic of an album that is riddled with cinematic references. From the interchangeable soundscapes of ‘Glam Bucket’ to the graceful orchestrated synths of ‘To Heal’, Underworld’s tendancies are enveloped by drama. The distance between 2002’s One Hundred Days Off and this studio album was partly, but not entirely, occupied by a resolute involvement with the cinematic arts.

Hyde - whose favourite movies include Rock n Roll Highschool simply because “the Ramones rule!” and 2001: A Space Odyssey for its “amazing” and “deeply influential” soundtrack – recently gave two movies the Underworld treatment. With back-to-back momentum, he and Rick Smith helped both Danny Boyle (whom they knew from previous work, Trainspotting and The Beach) on Sunshine and Anthony Minghella with Breaking and Entering.

Their involvement prior to writing the score has always depended on the director, as well as the timing of joining the project. Hyde says, “with Breaking And Entering we were brought in during the writing of the script and involved throughout the shooting”. Whereas, with Sunshine, they only saw a rough screening but were still “very excited by what Danny Boyle wanted” from them. He always sees their roll as support for the director’s vision and, as such, “what ends up on screen is always what the director wants and needs to underscore the action”.

Running concurrent to their work with these directors was their ongoing thirst for exploring new publishing methods, of making the journey more inclusive to their fans and kinship. The completion of their contract with V2 enabled them to break free, out on their own, to fully embrace the various distribution vehicles that stir them. For Hyde, it is simply “answering a powerful desire to have many ways of getting our work out to the world”. This materialised into many forms: the digital project, Riverrun, which proffered new tracks to their fans via the web only; plus, the launch of Underworldlive.com which enables users to have exclusive access to free audio dowloads, video downloads, live web radio shows, Quicktime TV casts and hi-resolution artwork.

A catalyst for this research was their eternal hero, John Peel, whom they stood in for at the BBC on occasion. “We grew up listening to John Peel & that’s the way we still listen to music – with open eyes & ears continually asking anyone we meet what new/old sounds their into…..often to play out on our web radio show. It’s what John taught us to do.”

Hyde and Smith are conclusively obsessed with the notion of journeymen, of how they feel in the current moment. The gently soulful and not just anthemic Balearic dance of Oblivion…assists the journey, but does not end it. There is more beyond. There is more in everything.

“I get better thoughts on trains, in café’s & walking down the street” says Hyde, providing proof that most good ideas don’t come whilst staring at a computer. “The best thoughts come from hearing other people’s conversations”. Eavesdropping seems to be the key. So watch out, whatever you say now might just end up in a song.