Underworld Vs The Mysterons
Athens
!K7

Although it was fantastic to see Underworld reap such huge success from ‘Born Slippy’, one of the true 90s UK techno classics, it was also frustrating as their horizons obviously reached a lot wider than banging students’ lager anthems. Now they’ve eased off the treadmill, original members Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, along with current cohorts Darren Price and Rick Smith, can indulge their deeper musical leanings, compiling a set which could loosely be termed jazz but charts a far more esoteric course, which started when they attempted to get an early 70s Soft Machine remix album off the ground to highlight the electronic innovations in their music. The set includes the Softs’ ‘Penny Hitch’ from 1973 amidst a stunningly-diverse selection leaning towards the spatial, including Alice Coltrane, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Squarepusher, Carl Craig, Moodyman, Laurent Garnier, MiroslavVitous and Roxy Music with their spooked ‘2HB’. Eno features on one of two tracks from Underworld themselves [the other is 1997’s Oh from Danny Boyle’s A Life Less Ordinary movie]; ‘Beebop Hurry’ was created for his Luminous Festival Of Experimental Music at Sydney Opera House earlier this year, featuring Karl’s freeform beat poetry over loose, scuttling backdrop. Adorned with Karl’s painting which named the album, this is an often-inspirational voyage into the psyche of one of our most intriguing, sometimes misread outfits.

4 Out Of 5

Reviewed By: Kris Needs