Mega Mega Vote Thing - UNDERWORLD (Smith/Hyde) in ILM Artist Poll #102 - Campaigning, Discussion, Equivocating until 22nd May

"Holding the Moth" from OWB is the one that always surprises me with how good it is

conversely dubno may (deservedly) be very difficult to dethrone xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vewj8NR08nE

i'm not going to make youtube embedding a thing and it's not like you can vote for this specific version of "air towel" anyway but it is sooo awesome and i am having a great time listening to it right now

the thing with dubnobass is I discovered it in high school (about a decade after its release) and it quickly became the most important album in the world to me. it also functions as a cross between electro, New Wave, and prog which happen to be my favorite genres

"air towel" is one i've never gotten at all, that repetitive synth loop gets on my nerves without there being much else to hold my attention. that version brad linked is so much better i can't believe it

the thing about second toughest for me is there's about an hour that's absolutely perfect and then there's "rowla" which is a little grating and far inferior to "cherry pie", and "air towel", so it's strange to listen to as a whole.

sorry for liveblogging my way through the catalog by oh my fucking goddd "cups"

Pearl's Girl (Carp Dreams... Koi) • [1996 b-side] 10:09

yo wtf i've never heard this before

the thing with dubnobass is I discovered it in high school (about a decade after its release) and it quickly became the most important album in the world to me. it also functions as a cross between electro, New Wave, and prog which happen to be my favorite genres

*listens to underworld all day* wow i really spent 24 hours with the king of snake

Underworld: Beaucoup Fish

think this was my very first poll

SNAKE

my favorite part of "king of snake":

that stuff enough
snake!

oh-h-hh-h-h-hh-hhh

king of snake great!

the version on Everything Everything though

jeez, “kittens”

underworld mk 2 is like... every few tracks there’s a peerless masterwork

Forgot how great Everything Everything is as a kind of snapshot of their 90s live performances.

Really wish it had this version of Rez/Cowgirl on though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jst8yoqPTmo

I listened to the whole of the Danish Dark And Long 'EP' last night and it rules from start to finish. If I was voting in this Spoon Deep would.figure very highly, absolute peak trance techno and such clean yet hedonic energy. That and Thing In A Book (which appears in the same piece of wax) both seem like perfect unedited live in studio jams, the peaks and troughs just all fall right.

I've also been listening to and enjoying STITI which I mostly skipped over when it came out. I can appreciate now that they are trying for something a bit different, and also what everyone gets out of it but still can't entirely shake the impression I had of the breakbeat stuff as enthusiastic but kind of cringworthy attempt at jungle. Of which embarrassing 'fungle' lameness there was quite a bit about. Snooker sample!

Reminded that .Nuxx is still brilliant, though. Another memorable occasion hearing Underworld's music loud in a public space at 4am was Laurent Garnier playing that (pre Trainspotting ubiquity) and one or both of the Leave Home remixes (intercut with Green Velvet - Flash IIRC) in a Wandsworth shopping centre.

Leave Home is nuts. There does need to be a follow up remixes poll.

Are remixes *of* Underworld by other acts eligible? Because I want to vote for the Pig & Dan Mix 2 of Play Pig if so

Don't think they are and neither are UW's own remixes (unfortunately)

Oh shit really? Was gonna vote for the Shakespears Sister dub extravaganza too :(

That one isn't credited to Underworld anyway, is it?

I know you all have been touting some of the dubnobass-era material that was not on the album, but I'm floored at the embarrassment of riches on the dubnobass deluxe version. I don't understand how they produced so much amazing music during that time period, and I'm also annoyed at myself for never checking it out before. "Thing in a Book" mix will certainly make my ballot, and at least a couple more but it'll be tough to decide which ones and how they rank

That one isn't credited to Underworld anyway, is it?

― ceci n'est pas un ppe (Noel Emits), Tuesday, 12 May 2020 11:40 (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's credited to Emerson and Smith on the vinyl

my recs for stuff that didn't make the deluxe version are "Mother Earth (FM Mix)", "Why Why Why", and "Dark Hard". there's really so much great non-album stuff from that period though, "Thing in a Book", "Most 'ospitable", "Spikee", "Dark Train"...

I got the double CD which has a pretty good selection but it's the other Skyscraper mixes that currently tempt me towards the Super Deluxe if I find one for a reasonable price.

Thanks for more recs but aaagh I may have to cut it at the super deluxe version for now, as there is still STITI and Beaucoup super deluxe and Riverrun to listen to. (I've given up trying to listen to Drift.) And then to put it into a ballot!

main issues with it are A) "Twist" doesn't have the awesome guitar bit that the live version does

so glad they eventually put out "Twist (Music Bank Jam Take 7)", the studio version is fine but the live version is really something else

there's really nothing much on the Beaucoup super deluxe of note since the era had only a single b-side and they didn't put any of the remixes they did themselves on the boxset for some reason.

i'm not as into Drift as a lot of other people here but "Custard Speedtalk" and "Appleshine Continuum" at the very least are absolutely essential listening. maybe "Dune" too

oh and if you listen to "Appleshine Continuum" make sure to listen to the full-length single version (https://youtu.be/LhcgUodizro) rather than the version they put on the boxset which cuts like 13 minutes off it.

Oh yes, I see Beaucoup is mostly outside remixes. I've heard the Drift sampler and liked it and "Custard" will def make my ballot. If I have time I'll listen to some Drift cuts that y'all recommend

it's a proper new mix/edit, but yeah it's pointless when the 47-minute version is so great.

if people are going to listen to just one Drift song, it should be the video for Custard Speedtalk. If they're only going to listen to two, the other should be Appleshine Continuum.

Are remixes *of* Underworld by other acts eligible?

no, in-house Underworld production only. we have to make the options manageable somehow!

a remixes poll can totally follow as a sequel, once ppl recover from the results-thread-inspired listening.


i'm not going to make youtube embedding a thing and it's not like you can vote for this specific version of "air towel" anyway

yes you can!

but it is sooo awesome and i am having a great time listening to it right now

here's another completely different 2008 live Air Towel, in an audience recording

If I was voting in this Spoon Deep would figure very highly,

voooote

Appleshine (8:37, Drift Series 1 Sampler Edition)
This Must Be Drum Street (4:26, Drift Series 1 Sampler Edition)
Schiphol Test (4:43, Drift Series 1 Sampler Edition)

went through your Drift alt versions list sic and you missed these three versions exclusive to the Sampler album. also i think it's the same version of "S T A R" on the Drift boxset and Game EP (you didn't mention if it was the version on the boxset)

also the video version of "Doris" is 3:26 so that's another unique version

i'm not going to make youtube embedding a thing and it's not like you can vote for this specific version of "air towel" anyway

yes you can!

Would there be different point totals for these or would you merge them? I've been taking the non-bolded stuff in your lists as things you would fold into the thing above.

Pearl's Girl (Carp Dreams... Koi) • [1996 b-side] 10:09

yo wtf i've never heard this before

I don't think the Second Toughest left out anything crucial. If you love "Born Slippy" (not NUXX) it is worth hearing the "Telematic" version.

Second Toughest *box

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5qIqg9x4lKvq1DR4BKFXdX

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxWLJazbXOaluH99S3_FgWInzNemME8RN

playlists of non-album material updated and should be very comprehensive now, the only thing that isn't on spotify or youtube from Drift is the Manchester Street Poem Installation Score version of "Doris". for Drift i was counting 'album version' as anything that's on the Drift Series 1 boxset or the Sampler edition album, so i've compiled all the versions that aren't on those.

not that i've noticed the difference with most of the Drift alternate mixes though lol

going through the AHDO b-sides tonight and "Like a Swimmer" and "Ansum" are really nice, very much in line with the best parts of Riverrun

xxxxxxpost

:D :D

[anyone except ufo almost certainly wants to skip this post]


I noticed that S T A R error reading back over the thread today and am extremely amused that anyone else has! Pretty sure it's the EP version again, yeah (on my original Drift spreadsheet I have the boxset version tagged as SAME, which is not as entirely clear as it might be.)


loads of the Drift videos have different running times, but it's usually just because there's a little more video than audio, so I didn't bother logging the details in this thread. for real trainspottery though, this 2017 trailer for the Manchester installation includes a minute of an early mix of Doris as bed.


I skipped the Sampler versions* because there aren't full versions of them, and the variations are probably done just for the sake of / in the process of mixing the tracks together. Appleshine is just crossfaded into Drum Street, I think, and the mix / edit variations on the other two seem to be for flow and timing.

* except Rebel Tech, which is basically a different recording of the song

I could not be more delighted that these monstrously finicky lists, which are mainly intended to make collating the votes easier & more accurate, and that I feared would be offputting or overwhelming to home listeners, are being called out for being insufficently anal.

Would there be different point totals for these or would you merge them? I've been taking the non-bolded stuff in your lists as things you would fold into the thing above.

I'll figure out how to represent them in the tally depending on whether anything gets enough votes to stand out separately

yeah "Doris" seems to be the only one i noticed where it's a notably shorter edit for the video. those lists have been very useful in navigating their sometimes endearingly confusing discography, i really appreciate the effort

xpost

eg hypotheticals: if lots of ppl vote for the Airtowel A2778 Live Jam and nobody votes for Air Towel, then A2778 Live Jam can place and I'll note that nobody voted for the parent version. If five people vote for Air Towel and two vote for A2778, then I might combine, or just add a note and link for A2778, or list separately, depending on how much the points would change the final placings. Basically I'll weight/structure the rollout based on how the voters seem to be valuing candidates and the parties they represent, but every vote will be counted!

(And again, people are welcome to add notes and caveats to their ballots, or argue in the thread that I've broken the titles up unfairly. Surprised there's been consensus that none of us really know what to do with the Dark & Long b-sides, instead of a debate, tbh)

Sounds good. I'm going to rank the Dark and Longs as unique songs and let you figure it out :)

Couldn't care less about minor edits of songs. I hope that stuff doesn't scare off lurkers. I think there is more than enough on any streaming platform to dive in and make a great ballot.

my view re: the dark & longs is they're all unique enough to count separately except "spoon deep" which i'd be fine about lumping in with "surfboy" and "hall's" which is just a single edit. even i haven't been bothering with listening to the minor edits much (but i've tracked them all down for the sake of curiosity and completeness)

agree on those ones

beaucoup fish box set is a little like... why is it like this???
but it does include “please help me,” one of their best b-sides, and “ramajama,” a track, at least according to youtube comments, that had been played live as a long intro to “king of snake”

That Reading Festival live version of “Rez/Cowgirl” posted upthread is straight fire.