Underworld Articles 2010

[TheBang]

Drowned in Sound.

http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4...-of-underworld

Quite a good interview:

DiS: [...] there was a very early version of ‘Scribble’ on some of the live tracks you released in 2005. But here it’s a lot more ‘direct’ and short, alongside a few other tracks such as ‘Always Loved a Film’ and ‘Diamond Jigsaw’?

K: The sound is more stripped back and less dense too. It was all very deliberate, yet equally due to a series of coincidences.

K: [...] we have for many years talked about taking over a theatre and playing all our songs that are not about that. We’ve talked about it for 6 or 7 years now and thought wouldn’t it be great to go out and perform these more intimate tunes in a seated auditorium.

K: I think some fans think we favour the [Japanese market], but the reason we do the special editions is because they get swamped with imports cheaper than their own, so if we don’t then the local record companies wouldn’t sell anything. Which is also why it’s out there already, to give them a chance. Plus records are pretty expensive out there.

But right now I’m quite happy to do another record because we’re not trapped anymore. I’m sure somewhere down the line we’ll do something else like a Riverrun. It would be really nice to do a series of evenings that aren’t the anthems.

K: [...] With this particular tour for the first time we used a setlist. More recently we were letting the crew put the set together just before we were going on stage just so they could know what we were going to be doing; how the lights go or how to improvise the video, as they were having to come up with something to whatever tune Rick would drop. With this tour it’s been fantastic as we can think about something else now. If we’d had setlists 20 years ago we’d have been bored rigid but because they’re like a new invention to us we can work harder on other things.

K: We’d put out some club tunes that had done well and [Rick had] got to a point where he’d gone into the studio and couldn’t write anything. . . . [Rick's] missus said ‘get back in that studio and don’t come out until you’ve written a great tune’ and he wrote ‘Rez’. Which spawned ‘Cowgirl’. We have a lot to thank those Essex girls for…