UNDERWORLD: celebrating the underbelly

Daryl Easlea celebrates one of the UK’s leading dance acts

Underworld have been at the forefront of electronic music for the past 15 years. The partnership at the group’s core, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, have now been on record for over 25, thanks to their past in groups such as Freur. The sound that Underworld make from their Romford, Essex HQ is adult, surprising, deep, often extracting a warmth from the machines on which they are made. Partially the reason for this is Hyde and Smith’s shared love of music well beyond the scope of the ‘dance’ tag with which they are lazily labelled. Onstage, they seem to delight in each others’ company, and Hyde connects in such an impassioned fashion with the music he, Smith and onstage partner Darren Price make. Sometimes, they go onstage early simply so they can play more.

Ben Thompson said in his groundbreaking 1998 book, Seven Years Of Plenty, ‘Listening to Underworld on the Tube between Bethnal Green and Liverpool Street, even the man sitting opposite eating a Pot Noodle with his hands looks like a movie extra.’ Thompson also talks about the other then-current avatars of the scene – Fluke, Ultramarine, Future Sound Of London, Orbital. All these groups, with many others that were making similar music at the time, have long gone, leaving only the Chemical Brothers and Underworld to make music at that level.

Karl Hyde is a warm, …

by Daryl Easlea
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