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Dubnobasswithmyheadman

by

Underworld

 
Dubnobasswithmyheadman
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Avg: 4.5 (169 ratings)

The techno trio, before their mega-hit "Born Slippy."

  • We Say...

    Not for nothing is the first track on this almost unpronounceable album called "Dark & Long." Almost all the tracks by this UK techno trio were both dark and long. The group's very name spoke of the urban subterrania that was their provenance and their subject.

    With roots in late-'80s whiteboy funk-rock, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith found the missing piece of their sonic jigsaw in Romford DJ Darren Emerson, the reborn Underworld giving techno a rock makeover (or vice versa?) by mixing cerebral synth loops and four-to-the-floor pulses with flat, passionless vocals and the occasional searing guitar riff. The ghosts of Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder collide here with blissed-out Orb arpeggios and skittering squirgles, creating a cold beauty and mechanized monorhythmic intensity.

    If Underworld's sound hit its peak with the Trainspotting classic "Born Slippy" and 1996's superior Second Toughest in the Infants album, Dubnobasswithmyheadman stands tall as a soundtrack — at once euphoric and claustrophobic — to hip life in the London suburbs of the early '90s. While there's a certain humorless pomposity to Hyde's sub-Alabama-3 delivery and his cut-up lyrics — "Mmm Skyscraper I Love You" is both facile and dated — a dark power is still discernible on trancey epics like "Tongue" and "Spoonman."

  • They Say...

    From the beginning of the first track "Dark & Long," Underworld's focus on production is clear, with songwriting coming in a distant second. The best tracks ("MMM Skyscraper I Love You," "Cowgirl") mesh Hyde's sultry songwriting with Emerson's beat-driven production, an innovative blend of classic acid house, techno and dub that sounds different from much that preceded it. In a decade awash with stale fusion, Underworld are truly a multi-genre group.

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