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Underworld (band)

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Underworld is the principal name under which British electronic music duo Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have recorded since the late 1970s.

Hyde and Smith began their musical partnership with the Kraftwerk and Reggae inspired sounds of The Screen Gemz while studying together at Cardiff Art College, and in 1983 recorded two albums for CBS Records with a proto-electroclash New Romantic band whose name was represented by a symbol rather than an actual name. However, this being a new band the early 1980s (and many years before The Artist Formerly Known As Prince could be abbreviated to TAFKAP ) it was decided that the band had to represent the sounds of the squiggle with a proper name, and so the act was marketed as Freur.

In 1986 Freur renamed themselves Underworld and tried a more guitar-oriented funky electropop sound on two albums for Sire before disbanding in 1990.

After a break (to concentrate, among other things, on art/design project Tomato), Hyde and Smith recruited Essex DJ Darren Emerson and, after several minor releases and remixes as Lemon Interupt and Steppin' Razor, Underworld have produced danceable techno as a trio until Emerson left in April 2000, and as a duo since then.

The addition of Emerson completed Underworld's techno/rock fusion and seemed to moderate some of the poppier elements in the original duo's work. Their first album, dubnobasswithmyheadman, was considered more accessible than the group's earlier material and crossed a large spectrum of dance music. The signature Hyde lyrics were in place: poetic, hypnotic and whispered; mixing conventional songwriting with the use of found material from overheard conversations, answerphone recordings and the like. Hyde had been the lead singer in Underworld Mk. I but the original Hyde/Smith dance material was lyric-free as was most of the electronic music emerging from the aftermath of acid house.

The band's 1996 album, Second Toughest in the Infants, was their second post-Emerson studio album and achieved no small degree of commercial success, due in part to its release coinciding with that of the film Trainspotting which featured the band's most commercially successful track to date, 'Born Slippy'. Both the single and the album showed Underworld maturing as a trio, mixing elements of techno, house, drum and bass and pop music to spectacular effect. The band originally wanted to call the album 'Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be Underworld' (a catchphrase used by contestants on the UK ITV programme Stars In Their Eyes), but were persuaded by their record company, Junior Boy's Own, that the name would not be easily understood outside the UK. Instead, the unusual name of the album as released derives, allegedly, from a comment made by Rick Smith's six-year old nephew when asked on his progress at school.

After the release of third studio album Beaucoup Fish in 1998, Hyde declared in his interviews that he had sorted out earlier problems with alcoholism but all the members admitted that the sessions had been fraught with problems, with the individual members working in their own studios and only communicating via mixes of the raw material passed back and forth on DAT. After the release of the album a large number of mixes of the album tracks seemed to surface on singles, magazine promotional CDs and similar ephemeral formats perhaps indicating the number of revisions the tracks had gone through to get to the point where they were acceptable to all three. The album's name derives from a sample of Cajun fishermen in Louisiana using a French-influenced variety of US English that is clearly audible on the track 'Jumbo'.

Despite these problems, Underworld embarked on a spirited and well-received tour which resulted in a live CD and DVD drawn from several dates on the tour. Called Everything, Everything, the project was said to capture the live Underworld very faithfully.

After the release and promotion of Everything, Everything Emerson decided to leave Underworld to focus on his solo projects and record label. Hyde and Smith decided to continue, once again, as a duo. They dubbed the project Underworld Mk. III and recorded a new album, A Hundred Days Off, released to general approval. Despite its status as the band's first studio album since Emerson's departure, its general sound and feel was, perhaps surprisingly for many Underworld fans, not completely dissimilar to the previous albums on which Emerson had had input. In early 2005, after much rumour, Underworld announced that the group had became a trio again - this time joined by Darren Price, a DJ well known by the band who had remixed Underworld releases in the past, as well as opening for the band on tour. In late 2005 they released two online compilations of in-progress songs, 'Lovely Broken Thing' and 'Pizza For Eggs'. Currently the trio is recording their fifth studio album.

The band has been regarded by some as key pioneers of the modern electronic music movement.

Band members

Discography

As "The Screen Gemz"

Singles

  • I Can't Stand Cars / Teenage Teenage (1979)

As "Freur"

Albums

  • Doot Doot (1983) (Reissued 1994)
  • Get Us Out of Here (1985) (Remastered, reissued 1998)
  • Transmutations (Underworld) (1985) (A film soundtrack)
  • Live at the Marquee (1999) (Remastered)
  • Dun Difrunt (1999) (Remastered)

Singles

  • Doot Doot (1983)
  • Matters of the Heart (1983)
  • Runaway (1983)
  • Riders in the Night (1984)
  • The Devil and Darkness (1984)
  • Look in Back for Answers (1984)
  • The Piano Song (1986)

As "Underworld" (mark I, funk rock)

Albums

Singles

  • Underneath The Radar (1988)
  • Glory! Glory! (1988)
  • Pray (1988)
  • Show Some Emotion (1988)
  • Stand Up (1989)
  • Change the Weather (1989)

As "Lemon Interrupt"

Singles

  • Dirty / Minneapolis (1992)
  • Eclipse / Bigmouth (1992)

As "Tomato featuring Underworld"

Singles

  • Mother Earth / The Hump (1992)

As "Underworld" (mark II, electronic)

Albums

Singles

As Underworld (mark III, without Emerson)

Albums

Singles

  • Two Months Off (2002)
  • Dinosaur Adventure 3D (2002)
  • Born Slippy.NUXX 2003 (2003)

Online Mixes

  • Lovely Broken Thing (2005)
  • Pizza For Eggs (2005)

UK hit singles

  • 1993 "Spikee/Dogman Go Woof" #63
  • 1994 "Dark and Long" #57
  • 1995 "Born Slippy" #52
  • 1996 "Pearl's Girl" #24
  • 1996 "Born Slippy" (re-issue) #2
  • 1996 "Pearl's Girl" (re-issue) #22
  • 1999 "Push Upstairs" #12
  • 1999 "Jumbo" #21
  • 1999 "King of Snake" #17
  • 2000 "Cowgirl" #24
  • 2002 "Two Months Off" #12
  • 2003 "Dinosaur Adventure 3D" #34
  • 2003 "Born Slippy 2003" #27

Trivia

  • Did not have a US Top 40 single (highest position was #69 for "Stand Up" in 1989).
File:Freur Doot Doot single cover.jpg
Cover of "Doot Doot" single (1983).
  • The post-Screen Gemz manifestation was originally designated only by an esoteric symbol (see "Doot Doot" single cover, top right), until forced to provide the "Freur" pronunciation.
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