What's the best of these electronic live albums from the big 90's acts?

It was like $120 here because M0dular made it into a spurious "festival" in a stadium with Van 5he, Cut C0py, Musc1es, The Pre5ets and The Bang Gang Deejays playing from 2pm before the standard 15-minute Sebasti4n & Kavinsky warm-up DJ set and I still say you chumped yourself

Van 5he, Cut C0py, Musc1es, The Pre5ets and The Bang Gang Deejays

even though some of these have been responsible for some good music, reading the above line filled me with fear and loathing.

we didn't go until sunset obv

Comment on a youtube of Orbital playing in Sydney last week, for Tuomas:

Best thing about that clip is it shows that Orbital really do play live... You can see them fuck up there (if you're a geek) - the big synth riff from Impact's supposed to kick at 0:09, and you can see Paul (on the right) throw his hands in the air when it's meant to happen, but instead the tune drops into the breakbeat. Then he fiddles around to rework it, drops it down to a single note, then brings the synth riff in. Good recovery.

Eh? I was never saying that these acts don't actually play live, just that live playing rarely improves the music.

do you ever see non-electronic bands live?

Eh? I was never saying that these acts don't actually play live, just that live playing rarely improves the music.

― Tuomas, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 07:21 (1 hour ago)

Well I saw Underworld live a shedload of times in the early to mid nineties and they certainly improved the music.

Highlight was probably a 2 hour set in the Dance Tent of the Phoenix Festival. It was one continuous mix with lots of improv from Karl and the majority of songs radically different from their studio versions.

UW does this a lot - their studio stuff is awesome, but...I feel like going through all the live stuff, they just have a tendency to nail it from time to time and perfect these already great tunes (check some of the live versions of "You Do Scribble", they almost make me glad they never tried it in studio)

I also have a Denki Groove live album that I really wanted to add to the poll but I doubt anyone has heard it. I did post a video of them above but I think this one adds to the discussion because it's easily one of the most "live" albums of the group, they're constantly mixing things that shouldn't go together and doing a ton of shit on the fly, much of which only kinda works out, but the album as a whole is still incredible. Alas,

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Closer than I thought it would be, though I figured that would be the order.

underworld are so cheesy. never really listened to them before outside of remixes and singles, listening to everything, everything now

someone really needs to show them how to change the quantize setting in their sequencer

Yeah! You tell 'em, champ!

Are you paying attention, Underworld?

0 is harsh on Don't Think which is pretty great

getting into this now, ha, they sure love their jd-800 presets! /startrekman

yeah I think that maybe not enough people have heard it? It is fairly new but IMO compares pretty well to the others

btw calling UW "cheesy" - c'mon, son. maybe listen to one of their full albums.

kind of hate the vox on underworld albums. they've always been a stumbling block for me.

Weird, I consider that their best asset. UW have a "new wave gone techno" approach which really appeals to me. No surprise since they were actual New Wavers for a while.

"new wave gone techno" had never really occurred to me but I can see that. terrible "brit pop gone techno" chemical bros tracks like "the test" are more along the lines of what I'm thinking of. admittedly, that's more of a stretch than your angle and probably a little unfair. underworld vox are definitely more integrated/fundamental to the band's sound than pastiche chemical bros tracks, but ultimately, they just both grate on me in similar ways.

To be fair I kind of liked "The Test" as well. so maybe my opinion isn't worth that much.

I guess I'd have to know exactly which songs you're talking about - "NUXX" is one thing, but I don't know how anyone could hate the vocals on "Dirty Epic"; it's one of the few tracks where Karl really gets to air his voice out and the effect is incredible. Also there's a bunch of tracks out there with cut-up vocal fragments - there's a newer tune they did, "Back in the Fears" which is just a bunch of vocal loops and a shimmering guitar - not something the Chems or any other of these groups could do. Obviously it's possible that you just don't like his voice but IMO he's better than any of the guest singers or vocalists that the other electronic groups got, and they've done a lot with the vocals that you probably wouldn't hear on the songs on Everything, Everything

I'd just listened to everything, everything, so yeah, "born slippy/nuxx." but I will check out "dirty epic" and see if it clicks w/me.