Underworld - Drift

the rehabilitation of new agey aesthetics, the turning away from degenerecy, filth, smut. airports rather than bunkers. no more friction.

parklife!

their finest moment, darren emerson knew a thing or two about the funk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGWx5EPdz7w

Nothing else really like it in their discography.

i'm not going to listen to all 7000 minutes of that […] Nothing else really like it in their discography.

🧐

just listen to paul hardcastle - king tut m8.

Just point yourself in the direction of your dreams
Find your strength in the egyptology melodics
And make your transition into becoming a tyranical pharoah.

It's more that I just don't get the appeal. They had their 90s lager lout moments with the first album and born slippy - which I don't necessarily like but I can at least appreciate as a reflection of a particularly mid 90s British cultural moment. Now they just seem to be piggybacking over whichever populist trend will make them vaguely relevant, which is kind of sad and tryhard.

― toxic psycho "gifted child" asshole (RobbiePires), Sunday, 7 November 2021 23:07 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Can I please come and live in whichever universe you're in, where the delicious 11-minute spoken word beauty of 'Dune' is considered a populist trend.

As far as I'm aware the ritual backlash against trance hasn't happened though as one would expect it to. If anything, it's all over a lot of contemporary techno and house, see that Roza Terenzi album - sounds like a record which would have come out from the English prog superclub scene of the 90s.

― toxic psycho "gifted child" asshole (RobbiePires), Sunday, 7 November 2021 17:15 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

the death of both the UK and Euro hardcore continuums, the gothification of industrial techno, lo fi house, the victory of tech house.

― toxic psycho "gifted child" asshole (RobbiePires), Monday, 8 November 2021 00:22 (three hours ago) link

the rehabilitation of new agey aesthetics, the turning away from degenerecy, filth, smut. airports rather than bunkers. no more friction.

― toxic psycho "gifted child" asshole (RobbiePires), Monday, 8 November 2021 00:24 (three hours ago) link

This feels like a convenient narrative folding in the last thirty years of dance music, which could make sense if one is applying a reynolds circa 1995 lens and not directly engaging with events on the ground and/or how sonics change meaning over time as the social context for them also changes.

In particular, I can see how for soapbox purposes it might be tempting to set up this oppositional narrative where trance and new agey aesthetics are opposed to degeneracy, filth and smut ("airports rather than bunkers") - but that rests on a bunch of unspoken assumptions regarding who is currently listening to trancey techno with new agey motifs, why, how, and what all those choices mean.

First, if we're gonna conflate Roza Terenzi with trance or prog-house revivalism (and why single out her? Bicep both make more sense and are a better stand-in for "mainstream" trends; Modern Love sounds more like B12's Time Tourist in truth), it's important to note that her scene is not really about reviving trance (or prog-house) per se but is rather stealing ideas from trance, techno, 2-step, electro, IDM and breakbeat (circa 1999).

That's hardly unprecedented or something that in broad terms wasn't happening in the 90s necessarily, but prog-house and trance went there only briefly and kind of by accident - the East Coast edition of Northern Exposure 2 is my standard reference point here, but even that's not a great fit; certainly we're not talking about Tripomatic Fairytales or An Accident In Paradise or Vorsprung Dyk Technik or Ima or even Northern Exposure 1. A more accurate but more boring comparison might be the Plank and End labels - although again that might well be accidental. Sonically, I tend to think the particular constellation of stylistic influences at least implies a certain exhaustion with house, which as a rhythmic template has been broadly dominant for the last 20 years or so.

None of which is to deny that on occasion artists within this scene play with more overtly trance signifiers, or that there isn't a lot of more (sometimes overlapping but most unrelated) straightforward 90s trance revivalism at the moment within hard techno scenes - though whether it's framed as a fashion thing (say, Charlotte de Witte remixing Age of Love) or as just people doing basically what they've always done (say, Chris Liebling) largely depends on the examples you point to.

What's the attraction of trance revivalism for people at the moment? IME it has been embraced most enthusiastically at clubs and parties that promote themselves as very queer, with a strong emphasis on trans and gender fluid audiences. They're typically very sex positive, costume heavy (craft-ish dress-ups somewhere between ravey and titillating) and druggy - a lot of ketamine, acid, nangs, pills and amyl. They're also often rudimentary / outdoorsy set-ups: bush doofs and illegal parties in parks and nature reserves rather than big clubs (what clubs I've heard this music in tend to the smaller side - and yes, often they're in basements). I read the new age / PLUR vibes as being in part about reviving the pageantry of nineties rave and in part because the utopianism of the music seems to chime in with the "we're making a future society" dreams (or more cynically, pretensions) of a lot of the audience. But a big part of it is probably just that trance is druggy, and in particular works well with ketamine.

I'm not going to make grand claims for any of the above - there's nothing terribly earth-shattering about young people taking drugs and trying to make their home-brand versions of Burning Man - but I'm dubious of attempts to project some binary of dance music which is middle-class/safe/white/sexless/funkless/commodified/ versus the edgy and exciting and sexy music of the intransigent working class youth or whatever - seems like it's a lot harder to make stick in 2021 than it was in 1995. (in any event: "proper hard techno, gabba, psychodelic acidic mayhem, industrial freakbeats, dub abstraction" - this just sounds like a DJ mix for an art gallery installation at this point, other than that I'm not convinced "industrial freakbeats" is a thing).

Not that any of this has that much to do with underworld, mind. But then you seem to be mashing together a whole bunch of only-tenuously-connected-or-reality-based propositions, so maybe that isn't really surprising.

their finest moment, darren emerson knew a thing or two about the funk.

Nothing else really like it in their discography.

― toxic psycho "gifted child" asshole (RobbiePires), Monday, 8 November 2021 00:43 (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Great track, sure, but isn't it kind of boring / tired / small-minded to just check for their one blatant martian tribute?

Does killfile still work on this thing?

I'm dubious of attempts to project some binary of dance music which is middle-class/safe/white/sexless/funkless/commodified/ versus the edgy and exciting and sexy music of the intransigent working class youth or whatever - seems like it's a lot harder to make stick in 2021 than it was in 1995. (in any event: "proper hard techno, gabba, psychodelic acidic mayhem, industrial freakbeats, dub abstraction" - this just sounds like a DJ mix for an art gallery installation at this point, other than that I'm not convinced "industrial freakbeats" is a thing).
― Tim F, Monday, 8 November 2021

ha. Industrial freakbeats was coined by DJ Kovert (of praxis fame) an area of hardcore I don't think you have ever had much interest in (so I can't take much credit for that one, I'm afraid.)

Again I don't have an issue with trance, my issue is with the pilfering of the most tired and stayed aspects of it, why not for instance reference old 150+ bpm german hardtrance, played by the likes of M Zone at all the big raves? or even if we're chiming in with the queer angle, Tony De Vit style big pianos/hoovers handbag and hard house? Must I remind you of your posts on dubstep vs UK funky in 06-07? Insofar as there is any sort of class dichotomy, it's about dilution rather than an opposition.

This could almost be a thread of its own: whether there is any contemporary dance music that is not apt to be described as insufferably middle class and conservative at this point.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 26 October 2021

I mean this might be completely true, but then cue hungry wives song, where do we go?

also nothing wrong with funklessness, but only and only if the music in question fully embraces it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuluJnFRE-0

It's possible you spend way more time thinking about trance than anyone else here.
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Sunday, 7 November 2021

Perhaps. It has mystified me after I dropped 15 tabs of lsd one saturday evening completely in an alternate reality, whizz bang explosions, pyrotechnics, saddam hussain being skewered into a kebab, and yet, still, i couldn't enjoy it when the hosts put it on.

revisiting the drift sampler today. amazing how it's their best record since beaucoup fish and yet only hints at the brilliance of the overall project

my only real nitpick is that a lot of the tracks may have benefitted from a proper studio master...the hi-hats are too sharp and some of the tracks sound kinda thin. like listen to the loop in "Big Bear", it's almost like it was mastered for laptop speakers. though I guess if they'd taken the time to do all that it would've messed with the concept of the project. most of it does sound really good.

curious what they've been up to since this wrapped up. Karl made it sound like they were still in the midst of a big creative outburst but we've heard virtually nothing since the pandemic started.

still haven't listened properly to Drift

Beaucoup Fish was and will always be one of my favorite albums from the 90s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLDOLgxuii8

Big Bear is such a fucking jam

Spent a while the other day reading about this band on here. Never listened before. Gave Big Bear a try in the evening. The next day,
I listened to the "Space" record (the one that closes with Big Bear) four times. Holy HELL

They have an insane amount of great music out there let me know if you want a Spotify playlist or something

Three playlists in the poll results thread iirc

Frogbs, I'd love to see a "deep cuts" best of since it sounds like there's a lot of top-drawer material outside the major studio albums. Remixes and alternate versions and B-sides and old songs getting remade and picking up slightly different names, those kinds of things...? Or do the two compilations with years in the titles (are they compilations?) mostly have it covered?

Not a hurry in any case, I think I'll be luxuriating in these Drift albums for ... months?? I've been altering Drift 4/Space and Technodelic all day every day. Can't get enough. Yesterday I tried Drift 1 since the consensus seems to be that it's the least awesome one. But it sounds just as good as Space.

I'm loving Karl Hyde's vocals. They remind me of David Longdon from Big Big Train, same early Genesis influence, maybe? Smooth and powerful. I didn't like Longdon at first either -- that kind of delivery is so earnestly emotional that I immediately distrust it. Yeah they can sometimes veer cheesy (not on Big Bear, Karl kills it on Big Bear) but pretty soon the way the vocals work with and against the music becomes interesting. The lyrics are both vivid and vague: striking enough to pull me out of the music's spell at odd moments, so that I start thinking, "Huh, I wonder why he chose THAT phrase for this spot," and then the things I start thinking about as a result get colored by the melody or synth texture or some shift or drop in the beat and then I have no idea where or who the hell I am, there's just this world I'm lost in the middle of... what a rush! And the feeling is addictive! There's seven songs on Space and already I get that "oh hell yes THIS ONE" feeling with each.

But I'm glad I heard Big Bear first. That song is so awesome and the vocals so fierce and the lyrics so good that I thought, "What the hell? People don't like this band because of Karl?" Then heard the rest of Space and thought, "Oh, okay, I see why he's divisive" -- but it was too late, I'd already heard Big Bear. CLEARLY the man knows what he's doing. And sure enough...

It was such a treat when Drift was coming out weekly, just this wonderful endless-feeling stream of great stuff. I hope they do it again.

here's quite a few non-album/obscurities highlights:

Dark & Long (Thing in a Book)
Dark & Long (Most 'Ospitable)
Dark & Long (Dark Train)
Spikee
8 Ball
Twist (Music Bank Jam Take 7)
I'm a Big Sister, and I'm a Girl, and I'm a Princess, and This is My Horse
Why Why Why
You Do Scribble
Born Slippy
Mother Earth (FM Mix)
Airtowel A2778 Live Jam for Web Dec 2000
Oich Oich
Deep Arch
Twenty Three Blue
Please Help Me
Ramajama
Parc
Cherry Pie
Pearls Girl (Tin There)

note that a track being labelled a remix or having is not a reliable indicator of whether it really is a remix - "born slippy" and "born slippy .nuxx" are unrelated, as are "dark train" and all of its 'remixes', but "pearls girl (tin there)" really is a remix of "pearls girl".

i recommend just going through the albums in chronological order firs though, starting with dubnobass. the 1992-2012 and 1992-2002 compilations aren't anywhere near comprehensive

Excellent revive.

If you think this fondly of "Hundred Weight Hammer", I don't think you're going to be put off by really any vocals. I'll be replaying the "Space" disc today.

had not heard Big Bear before, why the fuck did they leave this off the initial release of D4????

their post-Barking era has been really excellent, moreso because that felt like a bit like a veteran act releasing a vv professional, solid, legacy type work vs exploring exciting new terrain. The Eno/Hyde albums, Edgeland, BBWFASF, Drift, the recent singles...just a great time to a a fan.

basically a solid decade of uninterrupted unpredictability

"that felt like a bit like a veteran act releasing a vv professional, solid, legacy type work"

what is "that" here, Barking or the post-Barking era?

Barking imo

ufo’s list is really good, I’d add Bamboo and Puppies off the top of my head. Food a Ready/Back in the Fears is amazing too if you like the more New Wavey side of them. Which I think you would.

I’ve been listening to them since I was 13, so Karl’s lyrics never really struck me as being that unusual…until I started revisiting his work. He’s got sort of an Eno approach, idk how much sense the songs are supposed to make, it’s more a collection of phrases that stuck in his head

i like it well enough but it's not really the Underworld i ever want to listen to though i know for others it's a bit better than that xp

i always associated karl's lyrics with nighttime driving or commuting, everything you might see around you in overheard snippets or on the signs you pass by

yeah agree about Barking, it's a worthwhile listen but hasn't carved out a distinctive spot in my mind

I love the Eno/Hyde records

Also I think they are gonna be announcing a new album very soon and thus far the new stuff they’ve been playing live has been incredible, so nows probably a good time too

Anything very recent to make you think that? The "And the Colour Red" single was 9 months ago!

i was looking at the wrong thing... 13 months ago lol. That was around the time a handful of songs were debuted live.

Denver Luna came out in October

I mean the beginning of this slow trickle. With the Colour Red single they wiped their social medias and all that stuff that might make you expect a new album cycle kicking off. It's been nice anyway. I like the Kettama tracks too.

Thanks all!

I'm still joyously in "Space often, Space alone" mode.