In 1992 Underworld released Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You, a 12" single as good as anything else that came out that year. Skyscraper is a thirteen minute tribal/ techno/ progressive and ambient house tour de force with Rick Smith's synths and Darren Emerson's drum programming the perfect music backdrop for Karl Hyde's stream of consciousness mutterings and non- sequiturs. Hyde started the words on a plane coming in to land at New York.
'Thirty thousand feet above the earth/ It's a beautiful thing'.
He added more travelling round the city at ground level, a seemingly disconnected series of impressions and sketches. Porn dogs and Elvis and a little whipped cream.
They moved music ahead with this release and 1993's album dubnobasswithmyheadman and sound like no one but themselves. It was a time when music felt as if it was in a constant state of progress and innovation. As well as the thirteen minute spectacular that also takes up much of side one of their 1993 masterpiece dubnobasswithmyheadman there were two further versions on the 12".
Telegraph is seven minutes long with a woman's voice saying the title and laughing. Bleepier and tougher, the tempo faster and into trance territory
Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You (Telegraph 6.11.92)
Jam Scraper is nine minutes, a bleepy synth squiggle over the top of those long Blade Runner synth chords and Karl's bending guitar note providing a long slow intro, anticipation that doesn't take off until two minutes in when the kick drum really starts to thump.
Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You (Jam Scraper)
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