Strawberry Hotel - Dirty reviews

[potatobroth]

really hurts me to ask this however...
I've noticed the trend to make a lot of off-key vocals choices. Think this has to do with their voices aging? or just an artistic choice? Its no surprise that I do give them more leeway because well, I love UW. But if King of Haarlem was by some other band I'd roast it even harder than I did knowing it was UW. And there are a few other tracks on here where the vocals sound off key.

[kensey]

After a lot of listens, for me there's about 3/4 of a great Underworld album here.

Black Poppies is lovely, as it always was. Techno Shinkansen has really grown on me as a 'classic Underworld' track. And the colour red makes more sense in its place on the album to me. I love Sweet Lands Experience - it really works for me.

Lewis in Pomona was the first slight wtf moment. It's grown on me, but I still don't really get it tbh.

Then we're onto HiloSky, which was great at the RAH gig, and is still fantastic here. Love it.
Burst of laughter is not my cup of tea at all, none of it really sits together for me.
King of Haarlem has grown on me a bit. It's got an interesting flow - Karl's vocal reminds me of the nursery rhyme style of STAR.

Then Ottavia. I've listened to it maybe 1 and a half times, and that's enough for me.

Gene Pool is a thing of beauty - it ebbs and flows nicely and the vocals work really well here I think.

Oh Thorn! is ok, just a bit of filler really with its King of Haarlem retread.

Iron Bones is the other track that doesn't work at all for me. I like the start but then it just disintegrates.

Then Stick Man Test's simple, attractive melodies round out the record nicely.

I think the fact there are so many strong tracks, and that the ones I don't like are so out there is indicative of a duo that still have their eyes on the future, which is fantastic. I'd rather have it this way than for them to just play it safe. You can't say that about this album for sure.

It's the best album overall for me since RiverRun, so I'm very happy to have so much great new music to listen to!

[holden]

Was waiting for physical CD to have a nice first listen, but delayed US delivery, so...had a streamed listen.

First, very undeveloped impressions: that was some experience, hearing the album front to back, familiar songs with a ton of unheard-material. Overall positive, excited by the sounds and experiments, not too shocked and no skippers...in fact, more eager to hear it all again and form better opinions!

The run from opener "Black Poppies" through "King of Haarlem" sounds fantastic, energetic, epic, quintessential, still forward-loving...

End tracks a bit more "out there", and rough, but having lived through the "Drift" experience, it kind of makes sense. Closer "Stick Man Test" is beautiful, warm vibes and callbacks to many reference points along their career.

The spoken word on "ottavia" is maybe the bit that stands out as less successful on first blush, but i'm sure i'll change my mind!

Agree with other posters that this is probably the most enjoyable first listen since "The RiverRun". Much as i like aspects of "OWB". "Barking", "BBWFASF", and "Drift", they all in their own way seem disjointed or a little too much filler. "Strawberry Hotel' just seems more deliberate and cohesive, y'know?

[aphasein]

There's a lot to digest here - saw it alluded to once as like a mini Drift, although overall it's probably both more dance-heavy and oddly experimental than Drift. Always expect a lot of variety with Underworld and glad to have it here, but the sheer number and short track times are making it harder to get a handle on (and yes Drift was obviously a lot bigger and more varied, but following along with it a track at a time per week or so really let them breath and get ingrained).

There's a lot of classic Underworld sounds and motifs throughout the album mixed with some newer modern takes and techniques, and Karl always tends to go off into some new vocal territory each album, but this feels surprisingly different this time (in both a really exciting and weirdly incongruent way somehow). It's like there's a backbone of fresh-yet-classic Underworld tracks with some odd surface details going on. Tiny bits that would normally add depth further back are front and center, and vice versa, with buried vocals sometimes low in one channel (and pitched up vocal samples, ala modern hip-hop/R&B, while understood for cultural value and trying to add a new spin, always rub me wrong there as they do here). There's also a weird interest in sculpting static surf/dead air/tape hiss sounds this time that's hard on my tinnitus.

I don't know that this is the reason and it's probably much more complex an interaction between artists, but the review from the Arts Desk touched on something I have been thinking about: "Then the music gradually quietens down, with less predictable Underworld fare: including Ottavia, a bewitching track for Hyde and Smith, with a spoken word vocal from Rick Smith's daughter, mezzo-soprano Esme Bronwen-Smith, written by her and based on an aria from an opera by Monteverdi. She also co-produced the album, which may account for the welcome off-piste quirkiness of some tracks..."

I think overall it's energizing and was probably really enjoyable in the studio, but I do wonder if there was ever a "lowercase" version of the album that was rethought and expanded later (not to harp on it, but the 5 original tracks played live, the style of visuals with them and on the single drops, seemed to have a different more classic trajectory - they even kept the lowercase titling on the singles tracks with same exact edits and didn't segue them any into other album tracks, which seems unusual).

Anyway, long story long, I spent today both shuffling, and first-time for an Underworld album, actually editing almost half of the tracks. Mainly just fading out endings to join better or remove some blank space, but I cut Iron Bones before the pitched up third vocal refrain at end and replaced Ottavia with Velvet Does then it. Flows nicely into the acapella. I've also bumped Oh Thorn to a companion remix album I plan to make (with the Kettama tracks and others, as Thorn is more a remix/reprise of Haarlem), as well as Stick Man (which is obviously not a remix, but will end that album better). And finally I put Black Poppies as the end track right after Gene Pool, which flows really well and feels like a more beautifully epic conclusion together (I also experimented with cutting out the orgasmic sing-yelling runs from Lewis in P, but I'll probably still hear them in my head and get used to it, so doubt that will last).

[negative1]

Originally Posted by aphasein

(I also experimented with cutting out the orgasmic sing-yelling runs from Lewis in P, but I'll probably still hear them in my head and get used to it, so doubt that will last).

apologies to underworld...

i dont hear them now as much: mellowed out mix


also want to add the ross from friends track to the album at
some point..

later
|| | | ||
n egative 1

[dubman]

Originally Posted by negative1

apologies to underworld...

i dont hear them now as much: mellowed out mix


also want to add the ross from friends track to the album at
some point..

later
|| | | ||
n egative 1

This is perverse and I am against it. Small strangenesses like these characterize underworld tracks throughout every album. let it click or reject it, but stop squirming and making it fit what you're comfortable with. it's against the art of it.
why are we getting so comfortable with fan-fic headcanons of this release? seems insulting.

[ultradave]

hilo sky (mic drop). overall at 1 listen and for me it's a solid LP with some Most Excellent tracks - HILO SKY (it's landed in my UW top 5) : Denver Luna (Amazing as always) : Techno Shinkansen (still have a hard time pronouncing Shink...a what??) : Burst of Laughter : Ottavia and Gene Pool (These stood out the most for me). A few oddities, but it wouldn't be an UW LP without them... "Do you still feed the animals? Was hoping to listen to the vinyl but alas it is delayed... OH Well - I couldn't wait - so I gave it a 1am listen... and am planning another in the near future... but Hilo Sky is on REPEAT!

[potatobroth]

This is the first time I've ever written this about Underworld... but the album is whatever-the-opposite-of-growing-on-me is. Fading on me? There are still a few solid tracks on here, but the rest I just don't seem to care about. My gut reaction was 'its okay'. Then some of the middling tracks grew on me, but now I'm back to "its okay." Which is fine.

Black Poppies, Denver Luna (!!), Hilo Sky, Gene Pool, and probably Lewis in Pomona. Techno Shinkasen has a chance to grow on me still. But the rest is just kinda there.

I guess its like I felt with Drift, but that was because of the sheer number of tracks. There are dozens on the full Drift album that I won't revisit. But I do play the Sampler start to finish (usually skipping Brilliant Yes because mood killer.) I just can't see myself playing this start to finish. Once King of Haarlem starts its basically over for me except for Gene Pool.

[TheBang]

Originally Posted by ultradave

[B]: Techno Shinkansen (still have a hard time pronouncing Shink...a what??)

Shin-kan-sen (pronounce kan as Khan)

[aphasein]

IDK, I think the genie has been out of the bottle for a while now on remaking music - with it mainly being a digital form now for most of the audience, the democratization and easy availability of digital editing tools, and internet culture being what it is, it's definitely going to happen and often more extremely. The good news is it's generally done by passionate fans who are engaged and excited by the work (that's who is going to put in the effort and want to share it), but I also get the questionable nature and ambiguity of it.

I also see it as an extension of mixtape/playlists/DJ-culture (which Underworld is a huge part of), with DJ's making their own edits/selections/remixes. Autechre famously started out in the 80's by making pause-button edits at home to "tighten-up" (as they said) their favorite tracks to play to friends, which led to deeper remixing, then inserting their own compositions in their mixtapes and later DJ sets. The electro culture lent itself to this, but it also just happened anyway by people finding their own means and stepping up. Autechre are about to drop a new collection of live sets in place of an album (their words) and some fans will soon be chopping them up and enjoying that as well.

I know for myself it's something I really enjoy both the process of and end results of, and is something I probably can't turn off easily. I don't really consider myself a musician, but as a music producer I've done a ton of editing of my friends' work and collaborate mainly by suggesting or physically making edits (and I have written a few albums worth of tracks solo, but they've still mainly felt like editing as well). I'm a creative director in my day job, so spend the day recommending, deciding or physically making edits to other designer's work. And as an avid collector, I really love curation, which sometimes extends beyond the initial object into related items, and making decisions about fit and relevancy.

I think I have probably remade about 1/4 of my favorite albums, generally just dropping tracks, re-sequencing for better flow, and/or occasionally pulling in b-sides from same sessions to replace tracks when seems to fit better. Already re-sequenced the new Pixies album which also dropped yesterday to give it more energy upfront (and does our loose cultural/narrative preference for energy to kick things off and quiet/beautiful/slower endings stem actually from the limitations of vinyl, which preferred denser more bombastic songs physically be placed first and quiet songs last on the more limited inner bands, or is it more inherently intrinsic?) Is the album version definitive or the single edit that more people will probably hear and know? Or the live version that gets refined and settles more into itself sometimes from the comparatively early on album one?

I don't participate in any other online communities, so please forgive the occasional diatribes, but obviously something important to me that I care and think a lot about. I have totally redone Drift as I shared here, but other than that, for the albums, I've only adjusted Barking by replacing Diamond Jigsaw with Downpipe and dropping Louisiana (which really makes the whole thing quite a stomper). I've been there for every new release since Second Toughest and love the surprises (and still love most of SH), but I'd be lying if I didn't take stock of it feeling and fitting oddly different this time. IDK, still very exciting overall.