Underworld
BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix: Live at Privilege in Ibiza, August 8, 2010
No sense even pretending that I’ve listened to anything but this hour-long concert recording since I got my hot little hands on it the other day. Underworld is my favorite band in the world and the best live act I’ve ever seen for precisely the reason on such grand display here: gigantic-sounding body music, able to imbue the intimately personal acts of dancing in a crowdful of strangers or staring out the window of a moving vehicle alike with an epic feel that still doesn’t crowd out their meditative aspects. This particular gig was part of summer Saturday night party thrown by Pete Tong in the party capital of Europe, and thus the set was split neatly in half between the group’s biggest bangers–floor-filling fan favorites “Two Months Off,” “Rez/Cowgirl,” the “I Feel Love”-echoing “King of Snake,” and of course Trainspotting world-destroyer “Born Slippy.NUXX”–and a quartet of new songs done in collaboration with outside producers Mark Knight, D. Ramirez, and High Contrast–“Downpipe,” “Always Loved a Film,” “Scribble,” and “Between Stars.” What struck me is how the newer material, the bulk of which will appear on the band’s next album Barking this fall, held its own against stalwart UW anthems. I suppose it’s not the hugest surprise in the world, given that at least one of them, “Scribble,” itself evolved from the longtime concert-only drum’n’bass highlight “You Do Scribble.” But these songs are among the, well, songiest that the dance-act incarnation of Underworld has ever produced–verse-chorus-verse structures, direct lyrics about love delivered with non-distorted vocals–so I was interested to hear how their fatness, fullness, and brightness went over alongside the big pealing towers of the band’s classics. And it’s no accident that I find myself describing UW’s music in terms of girth, depth, and height, since it’s their music’s dynamics that have always rewarded repeat listenings for me. Consider here the way the big octave swoops that mark the end of “Rez” seem to draw your ears upward, or the chiming arpeggios that weave in and out of the big central riff of “Two Months Off,” or indeed how for all their Floydian sonic soundscapes, the band’s hooks are frequently three-to-five-note ditties you could play on the piano with one hand, enabling them to float above the beat and delight listeners whenever they suddenly appear. Delight’s such a huge part of an Underworld gig anyway, right down to the ebullient presence of singer and lyricist Karl Hyde, who whether he’s doing a “1-2-3-4!” lead-in to the first beat of the evening or telling the crowd “Ibiza! I feel your sweet vibrations!” or singing “Born Slippy” for a triple-digit time always seems like there’s no place on Earth he’d rather be. It’s dance music to explore as much as to dance to.