In 2018- 2019 Rick Smith and Karl Hyde decided 'out of boredom' to write and release new/ previously unreleased Underworld material on a weekly basis, every Thursday. They wanted to disrupt the write/ album/ tour schedule and do something more instinctive and responsive. It could have gone horribly wrong. Instead, Drift (as it became known) saw them produce the best material of their post- 1990s career. At the end of it they cherry picked ten tracks and compiled them as Drift Series 1 Sampler, an album that is the best they've done since, as I said opined before, the 90s. It closed with the ten minute track Custard Speedtalk, a track that sounds like classic Underworld, all straight lines and railway rhythms, Cowgirl synth squiggles and Karl's overheard fragments of conversation- 'I can't be soft at work/ They'd eat me alive'- and stream of consciousness emotions- 'You're really good at making people feel good/ You don't realise what a mess you're in/ Listen to yourself...'
By happy coincidence, last week Underworld announced a new album, Strawberry Hotel, a record they've been drip feeding tracks from for the last year- denver luna and And The Colour Red have already signposted where Karl and Rick are at. On Friday they put Black Poppies onto the streaming services and now we've got another what looks like essential album for 2024 ahead of us.
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