Underworld - Drift

would imagine there's 2 more songs to go, especially since "Mile Bush Pride" was so short

meaning either 5-6 weeks of live recordings or mixes depending on whether or not they release anything the week the album drops

I think there was some recent interview where they said they had a good idea of what the album was gonna be and what they'd do next. so something's up

would be odd to go out on vault stuff, though some of it's been awesome

well they're going out on the album release which I'm presuming is gonna get promoted & reviewed in all the usual spots

my guess is there'll be a few new album versions of tracks (like the new version of "soniamode") they'll release in the lead up to the album

Witney, Granby, Rochdale, Preston!

I think if Soniamode is on the album it'll be closer to the original version. The second one struck me as just part of the press push they did when kicking off Episode 4 (being done with the help of a Guardian reporter and all).

I like both versions fine but i wouldn't put it on the album.

What would y'all do with one disc of "drift songs"? It is up for preorder as a double vinyl and single CD, so.. 50-80min?

I just came up with this handful of favorites and tried to make the best sequence I could (I'll be impressed if they wind up putting anything that sounds like an album moreso than most of the episodes have)

universe of can when back
Brussels
pinetum
listen to their no
appleshine
another silent way
Toluca stars
border country

1hr. Would like to have a Necks thing included, hope there is another one with them.

surprised myself only having one from #3.. most days I'd say that's the best one

would've put on "Doris" but it's already on the Manchester Street Poem album that came out that week. Highly recommended for anyone here who hasn't checked that out!

I'm really hoping that there is a new track or two and that the whole thing is remixed heavily. nothing wrong with what we got just hoping for something different since I've listened to the Drift stuff so much already.

it's kind of hard to pare this down to an hour since so many of the tracks are 10+ minutes. not a lot of room for something like "Pinetum" or "Threat of Rain" (which I doubt would have made the album anyway, they don't usually put tracks like that on the LPs proper). I'm not sure if they're gonna aim for a album full of bangers or something more chill, or some combination of both. "Listen to Their No" & "Drum Street" were both played live so I assume they're both on the LP.

personally I'd do something like

Appleshine
Molehill
This Must Be Drum Street
Another Silent Way
Dexter's Chalk
Hundred Weight Hammer
Border Country
Custard Speedtalk
Tree and Two Chairs
Listen to Their No

that's about 75 minutes and it misses a few faves but it works

I would put "Mile Bush Pride" on there but I feel like we don't have the full version of that yet

good point about the two being played live. Going to play your list later!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VohOhpwbk3M

seems to be the last track from "Drift Series 1"

says "penultimate part of episode 5" so one more left? or does that refer to when they put it out as an EP

lol yeah my bad I forgot "penultimate" means there's one left

actually it's on YouTube now, it's called "S T A R" but you can't listen to it until 9/12

email: "Join us for the premiere of S T A R - the final part of DRIFT Episode 5 - Thursday 12th September 12.00 BST"

this week is the "penultimate part"

I figured this meant next week is the last song... but it's true that "star" could be just the name of the episode (it fits well with the other one word titles), with the full episode release to services as usual (and no new song, as usual). Also the email calls this week a "cliffhanger"!

who knows!

the specific premier time is a first?

some TV interface or other is apparently showing the Star video runtime as 3m45s.. and the description includes:

'S T A R' Lyrics LYRICS HERE - - - - - - - - - About 'S T A R' TRACK DESCRIPTION - - - - - - - - -

...

I'm gonna say it is a song!

This week's seems slight at first listen... the sort of new bit you might have heard as a bridge between big songs at a gig

most of the Ep 5 tracks seem that way. lotta jams without much structure. but I like those sorts of tracks

and yeah this does seem made to segue into something. it sounds like they're trying to build up some anticipation for next week's track so I'm pretty intrigued what it is now

CLIFFHANGER

Preview of the last track sounds awesome, I believe that’s the Lenny Penne beat

yup! and then something else and... tomorrow will be interesting.

Early today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdzeOJc67p8

it was right on the announced time!

I'd been thinking there was way more Karl than not, than they've typically had across their albums.

beware of this one then :)

it sounds like late-90s Underworld attempting to fake a late-90s Fatboy Slim single

Also, looks like they're now calling this whole thing Drift Series One and are going to start Series 2 once it concludes!

DRIFT Series 1 concludes on 1st November, marking 1 year since the start of the epic DRIFT journey of 52 releases in 52 weeks…

"Did any of us ever seriously think there wouldn’t be a DRIFT series 2…?" - Karl

"It’s madness isn’t it?... We’ll do this together until we’re dust" - Rick

Tracklist for the box set is noted as being provisional only, but each disc so far has two unreleased tracks.

Was just going to post.

DRIFT: Series 1 – Track Listings (Subject to Change):

Sampler Edition
Appleshine
This Must Be Drum Street
Listen To Their No
Border Country
Mile Bush Pride
Schiphol Test
Brilliant Yes That Would Be
S T A R (Rebel Tech)
Imagine A Box
Custard Speedtalk

Boxset

CD1 – Ep 1 DUST
Another Silent Way
Dexters Chalk
Low Between Zebras
Universe Of Can When Back
Brilliant Yes That Would Be
Another Silent Way / Drift Poem / Better Than Diamonds (previously unreleased)
One True Piano Need Hand (previously unreleased)

CD2 – Ep 2 ATOM
Appleshine
Molehill
Threat Of Rain
Brussels
Soniamode (Aditya Game)
Appleshiner (previously unreleased)
Roof Off (previously unreleased)

CD3 – Ep 3 HEART
Dune
Custard Speedtalk
This Must Be Drum Street
Pinetum
Poet Cat
Do Breakers Trip (previously unreleased)
Seven Music Drone (previously unreleased)

Wondering if Appleshiner is a shorter version of Appleshine Continuum?

the single disc album is now the "sampler edition" with the following tracklist:
Appleshine
This Must Be Drum Street
Listen To Their No
Border Country
Mile Bush Pride
Schiphol Test
Brilliant Yes That Would Be
S T A R (Rebel Tech)
Imagine A Box
Custard Speedtalk

it's also on iTunes too https://music.apple.com/au/album/drift-series-1-sampler-edition/1479687494 which notes that most of the tracks are remastered (not really surprising) but a lot of the track times are disappointingly shorter than the existing versions, which is strange since it's only an hour long as it is so i'd think there's room for them to have the full versions? weirdly it also includes "brilliant yes that would be" which was released a bit before they officially started drift (though a snippet of it was the intro to episode 1)

the boxset tracklisting isn't fully on that news post for some reason (only three CDs out of the seven) but they do seem to be editing the tracklists of each of the EPs a little in addition to the bonus tracks (not really a surprise that Appleshine Continuum will have its own disc i guess)

presumably that is wrt "appleshine continuum", though i guess they might throw in "a very silent way" on that disc since that was the other necks collab and isn't on the episode 1 disc, as well as other bonus tracks

there were only 6 CD's before...

still with the "52 weeks" so more to come with this series...

more serieses....

I'm dust

nice to see added emphasis on the project itself, with the album now titled as a "sampler". Whole thing to come to streaming services!

Dear Customer,

This is a notification to let you know that the release date of Drift Songs has been changed to 2019-11-01.

Kind Regards,
Underworld Store

before I noticed it came from a "noreply" thingy, I wanted to reply and say it was quite alright

xp yeah I'm glad to see that too, I didn't want this to be looked at like "here's the new album + a bunch of supplemental material", since I think all 5 of these EPs can stand on their own. would be a bit like Autechre coming out with a 1-disc version of NTS Sessions for the casuals. originally was a bit disappointed that the single disc was "just" a best-of but the extra material on all the other discs more than makes up for it

love the new track too, it's a bit gimmicky but UW have certainly earned it at this point

bring on 11-1

also of interest:

https://tower.jp/item/4930781

Japan version of the sampler is actually two discs, with disc 2 containing some of the more ambient/low key bits, + 2 tracks we haven't heard yet..."Do Breakers Trip" (listed as a bonus on EP3) and "A Moth at the Door"

looking over the track times on the iTunes sampler - several tracks are a bit shorter (particularly "Schiphol Test"), not really clear if these are "new" versions or just edits/fades. funny that "Mile Bush Pride", the one track I would hope would be expanded here, is actually cut down to 1:30

STAR is fun. The original is a highlight from Riverrun. I haven't played it in a while, but it sounds like Rick did quite a bit with it here as well.

many xp's to sic: nothing wrong with lots of Karl (what's really meant here is "vocals"), it just seemed unusual for them if this was all towards an album...I think that's evidenced by their inclusion of BYTWB on the "sampler".

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/underworld-drift-series-1-star-883355/?&cf=1

Google skills.

yup, a Necks disc, with a third track that's a take on Altitude Dub!

this revealed the name of the last episode, Game

dust
atom
heart
space
game

ok

I wonder if they just release some of the extra box tracks in the remaining weeks.. there's 11! if next week is episode 5 release, there's 5 left

Full tracklist. With all the unreleased tracks I think everything from the Ep 2 liner notes is covered.

CD1 - Ep 1 DUST
Another Silent Way
Dexters Chalk
Low Between Zebras
Universe Of Can When Back
Brilliant Yes That Would Be
Another Silent Way / Drift Poem / Better Than Diamonds (previously unreleased)
One True Piano Need Hand (previously unreleased)

CD2 - Ep 2 ATOM
Appleshine
Molehill
Threat Of Rain
Brussels
Soniamode (Aditya Game)
Appleshiner (previously unreleased)
Roof Off (previously unreleased)

CD3 - Ep 3 HEART
Dune
Custard Speedtalk
This Must Be Drum Street
Pinetum
Poet Cat
Do Breakers Trip (previously unreleased)
Seven Music Drone (previously unreleased)

CD4 - Ep 4 SPACE
Listen To Their No
Schiphol Test
Hundred Weight Hammer
Doris
Altitude Dub
Border Country
Big Bear (previously unreleased)

CD5 - Ep 5 GAME
Toluca Stars
Mile Bush Pride
Imagine A Box
Tree And Two Chairs
Give Me The Room
S T A R
Doscientos (previously unreleased)
Two Arrows (previously unreleased)
A Moth At The Door (previously unreleased)

CD6 - Underworld and The Necks
Appleshine Continuum
A Very Silent Way
Altitude Dub Continuum (previously unreleased)

so in the end it did wind up being 6 EPs. my guess is they really didn't know where all this was going so they reconfigured it to something that made a bit more sense.

I'm interested in how the Necks disc is going to be mixed. I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed that the ending of "Appleshine Continuum" sort of leads into the "Very Silent Way" groove. would be incredible if it was all mixed together. "Altitude Dub" is a strange choice - would have expected "Table & Two Chairs There"

Enough material for 6 at least. I don't have high hopes for the extras... wouldn't they be kept for series 2 work if they were anything special? Or are they determined to start fresh?

It's interesting that the Sampler leans so heavily on later episodes. I wasn't a huge fan of #1, but I could see some of the old gang on the fan forum like it best. 2 and 3 I was all in on. 4 and 5 I'm enjoying... sort of felt like it was the B material to cap a crazy, long project (besides Border Country and a couple others). I'll spend some more time with them... but clearly they're the band's favourites and that surprised me. When the box comes, I'll be trying to read it as some sort of gradual evolution in their sound, that they seem to think was successful.

well UW's extras have always been pretty good but I kinda suspect that these may be early versions or riffs off the stuff they released. like how "Dark and Long" became 10 different pieces somehow.

I agree that the high point of the project was somewhere in the middle..."Appleshine Continuum" -> all the Episode 3 stuff -> "Listen to their No" & "Schiphol Test"...but that said I've liked the Ep 5 tracks a lot, I just haven't listened to them more than once or twice because I'm waiting for the actual EP. I am surprised that something like "Dexters Chalk" or "Another Silent Way" isn't on the sampler but maybe they felt it was banging enough as it was. It looks to me like they're backtracking a little bit on the idea of the "Drift Songs" album and instead are focusing on the project as a whole. Maybe they didn't expect this stuff to turn out as good as it did.

truetruetrue

about the 90s and the many "remixes"... a lot of these things were straight up new songs labeled as remixes on singles in order to get more material out and still be eligible to chart... at least that was what I heard around, back then. Many did share elements though so it's all blurred.

the mystery continues

if anything, they usually named them as straight up new songs on the singles and then later sort-of rebranded them as versions for clarity. given how improv-based they were in the Emerson era, it's probable that they thought of them / recorded them as completely different takes on the same ideas, rather than remixing one "finished" song.

It's interesting that the Sampler leans so heavily on later episodes

yeah, I'm guessing this is recency bias? or maybe they know sales on the later EPs are much lower once the album was announced, so they figure more ppl have heard the early tracks. be interesting to see if the shorter sampler versions are different mixes or just basic edits / fades.

Rebranded for clarity? Eh, like when?

it's hard to imagine them being too concerned with sales, but it's been funny how almost every single week has a different wrinkle to it. Download and YouTube, no streaming / streaming and YouTube only / just YouTube ... their people must have some interesting metrics, but i dunno if that would have influenced the tracklist

Rebranded for clarity? Eh, like when?

Born Slippy .NUXX retitled Born Slippy (Nuxx) or Born Slippy (Nuxx Mix) (or, for less clarity, just Born Slippy) on 8 million compilations

Dirty Guitar retitled Dirty Epic (Dirty Guitar Mix) on US releases

Dark Train retitled Dark & Long (Dark Train Mix) on foreign releases & the superdeluxe DubNob, Thing In A Book retitled Dark & Long (Thing In Book) or Dark & Long (Thing In A Book Mix) on foreign releases and the superdeluxe etc etc

Ep. 5 out last Thursday, been enjoying it a lot

some people on the fanboard have pointed out a few differences - most obviously is "Mile Bush Pride" which is cut down to 1:30, but there's also a replacement of the great jazzy keyboard line on "Tree and Two Chairs" and an off-beat delay on the vocals at the end of "S T A R". so make sure you keep your single tracks

makes me wonder what the EPs on the box set will sound like. I wouldn't be surprised if they made a bunch of tweaks to the entire thing, especially the early tracks

keep single tracks? Weren't some or all of those you mention YouTube-only? I'll maybe fuss about archiving YouTube rips after I see what is on the Bluray. Something like "Mile Bush Pride" might have a pretty simple visual, but I doubt they will just lop half of that off. I'm thinking the videos are the videos, whether or not they have the "(Film Edit)" tag.

Episode is very nice. The week-to-week might've been more underwhelming than the others, but I doubt I'll see it as the weakest once I get my head around the full series. It's funny when everything is introduced to you as a "single".

correction, only "Mile Bush Pride" was YouTube-only previously. Others were on streaming at least.

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.