Underworld - Drift

to be fair Hyde is barely on that track

also it kinda speaks to how accomplished these dudes are? like, I remember the band pulled out "Dirty Epic" in like, 2010 or so, and someone noted that Karl was reading the lyrics off a piece of paper because he'd forgotten them! I mean, imagine writing so much great music that you can't even remember how "Dirty Epic" goes

Can I say something? I don’t even know what song you’re talking about.

ha ha, Karl OTM

relieves me to hear Karl himself has trouble remembering their music from the titles. even for some UW songs I love, it's taken me years to associate the music with the title

Two-part podcast "interview" with all the questions cut out: in part 1, they talk about how Drift came from a complete change in their relationship. For no apparent reason whatsoever, in Australia in 2017, Karl started listening to Rick for the first time ever, and that facilitated this more fluid way of working. (Karl also talks about how validating he found the process of publishing Drift - aside from their output not being mediated through the publicity/licensing machine, they'd also get immediate feedback not just from youtube comments, but also friends dropping a text to comment on the week's release.)

In part 2 they talk in broader terms about the role of the artist in society,their application of this, and not being a band.

MP3 links above, website here

the Sydney Opera House youtube channel has been releasing a lot of archive recordings (and new performances to empty rooms) during lockdown: here's a full version of Border Country from a few weeks before its Drift drop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1g_IIXnFsU

(other recent uploads of likely interest include full shows by Four Tet and Amon Tobin's ISAM 3D-mapped set, though the latter won't convey the full molar-shaking feel of being on the hollow wooden floor)

https://store.underworldlive.com/products/rez-live-at-reading-1996

Hope this link works - I removed a lot of bumph at the end in case sic gave me side eye.
New free download of Rez live at Reading

heads up that you can go through the checkout without creating an account, just putting a token character in each field.

oh damn it's THAT performance of Rez, awesome

hopefully a teaser for full show releases from the DAT archive, or other selected bangers for the next "in-between" Drift freebies. the video of Rick fiddling with the Arp isn't long enough!

Revisiting this tonight. Gratitude to the boys for such an enormous gift.

interesting... first new non-archival release since the Drift box, isn't it?

Halsey - I am not a woman, I'm a god (Underworld’s Drift Mix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Fjtbl5jEw

Let me be the first to say this is horrible. I actually have liked a couple Halsey songs, her SNL performance in particular was powerful. This remix is garbage though. Definitely cashing a check here. At least they didn't waste any good ideas on this remix.

it's certainly surprising

Hate the trend for remixes on major labels to be 3 minutes long when you suspect there are normal length versions that remain unreleased as they don’t bring in the quantity of streams

Are they working on Drift 2 ? They just sent out a mail with a free download of a new 10 minute Dark Train mix ("from the pigshed") called "Drift 2 Dark Train"

Released in the summer of 1994, one could argue that Dark Train was Underworld’s first proper anthem. Where previous singles Mmm… Skyscraper I Love You, Rez and Cowgirl had provided the soundtrack to countless nights in dank basements and underground clubs, Dark Train drove a hole directly through the walls and parked itself on the main dance floor. It quickly crossed from techno world and into the super clubs - those buttoned up, shiny new sonic meccas that sprang up all over the UK in the mid ’90s. Once there, it began to shape the sounds around it, an irrepressible, irresistible virus in the mainstream. Often imitated over the years, Dark Train was never equalled.

Ostensibly a remix of Dark & Long, in reality this was always very much its own thing. Completely reimagined from the original, it was an irrepressible groove, a signal to move and an instruction to ride the train with zero regard for the destination. Eighteen months after release and club ubiquity, the track gained a post-club afterlife in Danny Boyle’s 1996 film Trainspotting. There, it formed part of an unforgettable juxtaposition in the film’s cold turkey scene - the claustrophobic, bedroom bound visuals offset by the relentless elation of the music.

This new mix of Dark Train builds on Underworld’s recent live performances of the track. For this exclusive release, Underworld have reimagined the original mix in the Pigshed as if it were being played out, and we were stood together in field or concert hall, riding that train together.

the soft launch continues lol. Mm this is nice

yeah I'm surprised we've heard basically nothing of them since Drift 1 finished but I assumed they were still doing...something

you know I listened to that Drift stuff so much in 2019 and the start of 2020 all of it is burned into my brain as the immediate pre-pandemic music. anyway numbers are down so time for 6 more albums I hope

As noted elsewhere, numbers yesterday were the second-highest of the entire pandemic, and have been rising consistently since June, bar one fortnight in summer. Hancock was fired in June for breaking distancing rules*, Jarvis announced Freedom Day for three weeks after that and promptly caught covid himself. TWO DAYS AGO he announced that mask-wearing would be a Plan B if things continue to get worse, and maybe MPs should do it anyway to set an example — only to be contradicted in Parliament by JRM, who claimed that you can’t spread the virus to people you know.

Numbers for 16th to 18th October are up 18% on the week before. What the fuck are people talking about on this board?! Karl and Rick are in the age group second-highest for hospitalisations! Cases in under-19s are literally the highest they’ve ever been. 1 in 63 people are actively symptomatic!

*by fucking an aide in his office, not for awarding her brother million-pound covid relief contracts, which he also did.

wow racist much, autocorrect

16th to 22nd October, that one was me.

look the pandemic started as soon as Drift 1 stopped so maybe Drift 2 can end it

i had the less controversial thought that Nov 1 will be the third anniversary of the start of the thing.

They really could have been churning out Drift At Home EPs of ambient Rick stuff for the last year

irl lol xps

they've never really sat still over the last 40 years so I'd imagine they've got *something* going on

i should remember this as i read the box's book and the episode 2 online notes and whatever else but...i don't get the feeling that very much (any?) of the Drift tracks were conceived, brand new, week to week. More that it was a massive clearing of the decks, fleshing out an existing idea or demo week to week. I imagine they've been building the stockpile back up.

and maybe finishing a few things in advance for Rick's sanity this time round

the thing about that there are like 2 dozen unreleased tracks that have been played live once or released as demos online or played on a random radio show and I don't think elements of any of them wound up here. the only real callback is the "Lenny Penne" beat in "S T A R"

idk if any of the tracks were just like "here's something we did yesterday" but I'd guess a ton of it was written after Episode 1 was started

Is there that much? "Are You Rockstar" was one... and they just straight up released it on a Drift off-week. Do you think they're still working on, like, "5 Points"... or is it more likely they're not as into as some fans were? I mean I'm mystified as well - if they were done with it, it would've been a nice single or at least bonus track on the Beaucoup Fish reissue.

But anyways I meant "clearing the decks" more as in whatever they had made lately as sort of ideas for a next album, that turned into this project instead.

do they still sound like ex-libertines fan discovers dance music, nme-approved trance then? because I can strangle myself in contentment that nothing has changed.

not sure they've put much out since last time you said you didn't like them

new board description

Update today: 1 in 55 people are now currently infected, Javid responds that he doesn’t anticipate a need for mask-wearing or distancing before January

sic wtf are you doing to this thread

xxxxp I still want "Bamboo"!!

in case anybody is actually getting their covid news from this thread I want to keep it accurate!

do they still sound like ex-libertines fan discovers dance music, nme-approved trance then? because I can strangle myself in contentment that nothing has changed.

― RobbiePires, Sunday, 24 October 2021 11:37 (two days ago) link

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.

Of course any such discussion would be more interesting if everyone agreed not to conduct it on the basis of not having had an original thought in over twenty years.

good to see you, Tim!

Drift 2 Dark Train now on Spotify as a single with the original plus Most 'Ospitable

it's available for order on vinyl with those tracks now too. Not too attractive

this remix of dark train is dope

degree to which it is dope because it is almost indistinguishable from the regular dark train: unknown

yeah, that is true

we spend a little longer on this train, even though it moves a little bit faster. Doesn't seem like it has any newly recorded elements though

The blurb on it suggests that it’s strictly Rick playing the song live-in-studio exactly as he would at a current-era greatest hits festival show, but with Karl’s vocals as one extra track.

I quite like Underworld, but as I've noted before, I just want the fucker to STOP. SINGING.

If we lived in less perilous times I’d FP you have that

xp - do you mean you'd like his voice to appear less, table? Or that you don't want him to be "singing" as distinct from saying things?

I've got a lot of time for Karl Hyde releases - which tend towards "singing songs" - but his voice/lyrics seem even more essential in Underworld tracks, which seem different than that.