Underworld - Dubnobasswithmyheadman

Truly a great album, Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman shines!

This album, while 14 years old, serves to highlight the true genius of Underworld's approach to the techno expression, with dramatic beats, rhythmic intonations, and mind-bending, trance-inducing flow. This is a must have for any techno or trance collection and should be thought of as a reference point for the genres. September 19, 2008

Brilliant

I first heard this in 2007, many years after it was released. Does it matter? Not in the least - this is one of the greatest techno albums I've ever heard. I've listened to it over and over again since I bought it. It's really addictive.

On my first listen, I thought it was a bit too "disco-y", meaning repetitive and best heard while on drugs on the dance floor. But with a couple more listens (clean and sober, not dancing) I grew to absolutely love this. The songs are awesome, and perfect for walking the dog, working out, or at the office.

The lyrics are surreal, and the guitar/electronica mix is fantastic. Songs range from the epic "Skyscraper, I love you" to the buzzy "Cowgirl" to the laid back "River of Bass".

Excellent. Buy it, you won't regret it. September 13, 2007

The Masterful Music of Madness

For almost twenty years, the British duo of Hyde and Smith have been recording as Underworld. This was their first studio album (made with the collaboration of DJ Emerson, who has since left the group), and it is a synapse-shattering example of pure electronic genius made even more impressive when you consider that its electroclash ingenuity and acid house ambiences are as powerful as anything being made today.

If you wondering what to expect, keep wondering. You can listen to this record over and over again and be surprised every time. The reason that music like this exists is because there are no words to approximate what it means or accomplishes. You could say that some songs flow like the trickle-down perspiration on the walls of unexplored caves ("Dark & Long"), that some of them illustrate the electrochemical hopscotch of viruses invading healthy cells ("Spoonman"), that some of the tunes are the aural equivalent of lazy, Missourian sedimentary fossilization, silt and grit burying half-heard secrets ("River of Bass").

I could point to similar bands, if that would help. Here there is A3's country-wise spiritualism, Morphine's coarse-ground flophouse jazz,
Crystal Method's spirit mixed with Zero 7's laconic mentality. Again, though, this is a case where the whole is much more than the sum of the parts. How to describe the wickedness of "Cowgirl" or the sonorous luminosity of "Surfboy?" Will words do "Mmm Skyscraper I Love You" any justice at all?

Nah. It's enough, I think, to say that this album is an unnerving work of art, an example of electronica that -- like electricity itself -- defies containment, defies shape, defies limitations. It charges the slow, wilful spark of precarious profundity, it rips through the impulse to think and remember, it ignites the vicious and verdant instinct to get up and move. If Cicero was right when he said that "No sane man will dance," then this record should make lunatics of us all.

April 18, 2007

another classic

the masters of the genre produce something deep and free flowing that still sounds good a decade later February 20, 2007

Everybody's a beautiful thing

From the slow slithery groove of "Dark & Long" to the collosal techno anthem of "Mmm Skyscraper..." to the brilliantly kinetic pop of "Cowgirl" to the masterfully crafted nocturnal journey of "Dirty Epic" this album showcases Underworld at the peak of their compositional prowess in the realm of trance-oriented electronica. Now and then vocalist Karl Hyde sedately renders abstract lyrics that flow effortlessly between the layers of instrumentation and sometimes break into catchy mantras ("thirty thousand feet above the earth / its a beautiful thing / everybody's a beautiful thing"). However the sheer virtuosity of the above mentioned classics unavoidably relegates the remainder of the album to mere filler status (albeit not without their merits, such as the spare yet singularly atmospheric "Tongue"). Despite this "Dubnobasswithmyheadman" is a timeless achievement by Underworld that has not and most likely will never be bettered by any of their later work. March 14, 2006

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