Pitchfork

Dah-dah-boy, la-la-la-la-boy, something something angel boy, beautiful boy, boy, lipstick, something else, boyyyyy...hey, remember Underworld? They had that song "Born Slippy" on the Trainspotting soundtrack that was all the rage back in 1996? And now it's stuck in your head all over again?

Well, you're just in time, as the beloved techno institution has reemerged, once again hell-bent on revolutionizing the way you listen to music. You won't find Underworld's latest release in stores, or even be able to throw it on the turntable at your next rave. That's because masterminds Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have readied a series of mp3 "bundles" to cater to the twenty-first century music listener, available from their website, underworldlive.com. Dubbed "The Riverrun Project", each bundle features neither single songs nor an album, but a medley-like 25-or-so-minute aural concoction comprised of several movements and arranged into a single continuous mix. Hyde and Smith have also loaded the bundles with hundreds of photographs, traditional album art for your printing pleasure, and exclusive codes allowing access to Underworld's online archive and all the wondrous treasures it holds.

Underworld kicked off the Riverrun Project with last month's release of the inaugural bundle, "Lovely Broken Thing". Today, December 7, sees the arrival of the follow-up, "Pizza for Eggs", described in a press release as "ethereal" and more "dub-inspired" than its predecessor. Both are available for a mere £5 from underworldlive.com, which, these days, is like 39 U.S. dollars or something.

Pitchfork recently caught up with Hyde for a little t\xEAte-à-t\xEAte about Riverrun and other rumblings in the Underworld:

"We're having fun, you know?" Hyde exclaimed, regarding the innovative release format. "It's kind of like selling 12"s out of the back of the car in the early nineties." According to Hyde, Riverrun allows Underworld a newfound immediacy in sharing various musical ideas with a global audience. They can incorporate multimedia elements in ways never possible before, all while working at a pace determined by the duo themselves, not by a record company.

Quoth Hyde: "We kind of got disillusioned with the shape of records. It's ten tracks in 70 minutes and you [have] a jewel case with a folding book and four colors-- it was kind of mind numbing." He assured us, however, that Underworld have by no means forsaken traditional music release formats; indeed, the band plans to issue a number of remixes of segments culled from "Lovely Broken Thing" and "Pizza for Eggs" on 12" vinyl. A portion titled "JAL to Tokyo" received remix treatment from house DJ Paul Woolford and has been making a stir among club mavens. It will be followed by remixes from Martinez, Paul Heller, and Robag Wruhme.

Hyde disclosed that he and Smith have over 180 "segments" already written, so fans of the new Riverrun format can expect bountiful output from the series in the months to come.

Underworld have also taken to internet radio, directly inspired by their longtime friend, the late Sir John Peel. Peel "was really our great teacher for 35 years," said Hyde. "When he asked us to sit in for him when he went on holiday and look after his show-which is a gobsmacking honor-that really kicked us off to be broadcasting." Hyde and Smith compile their own program now, on which "every music genre is fair game," and share it via their multimedia internet headquarters dirty.org. Episodes see light intermittently, and Hyde hopes to do another before Christmas.

But just what does an Underworld-hosted internet radio show entail? We have "a chat room with a live camera," proclaimed Hyde. "And we're giving away work in progress as well as turning people on to a lot of new tunes."

Men about town that they are, Hyde and Smith are also presently collaborating or considering collaborations with experimental Japanese psych-rockers Afrirampo, German trance producer Sven Väth, and the legendary Brian Eno. "We were kind of jamming in the studio earlier this year, and it was kind of obvious that something was kicking off there," Hyde said of working with Eno. "We've given him some stuff and he's given us some stuff. We have these conversations and meet and talk and play each other's stuff, and he's quietly getting on with something we've given him, and we're waiting for his response and we'll kind of take it from there. Really, just the doors are open, so if somebody walks in, something can happen, you know?"

Furthermore, the lads have teamed up with acclaimed film director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Cold Mountain) and composer Gabriel Yared to score Minghella's Breaking and Entering, which is scheduled for a spring 2006 release. But this isn't your traditional filmmaker-musicmaker partnership. "We've kind of formed a band with the two of them," Hyde said of Minghella and Yared. "We've been jamming here in Abbey Road [studios] for a while now and having a really good time, producing some very different music. We're talking about not only an album from the movie, but another album and quite likely some live shows for the four of us." He said the group has even coaxed Minghella into showing off his piano-playing and lyric-writing skills.

Never content to confine their talents merely to the aural realm, Underworld have long overseen the graphic-design collective Tomato, who also have several projects in the works. In addition to designing the artwork for the Riverrun series, Tomato will soon release a book incorporating Karl Hyde's writings and some 36,000 photographs he took with his cell phone. "It's become an addiction," Hyde said. "I take about two or three hundred a day. The damn thing is that people keep phoning me on my camera, and I hate that."

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