Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
Release date: 26 Sep 19
Format: Download

2006: One from the archives… a beautiful groove finding its feet and learning to walk.

One of those loping tracks evocative of our time making records in a terraced house in Romford. One of those inimitable titles that tumble out’ve Rick when he’s off and running that I would’ve chuckled and said “yes” to instantly. – Karl

LISTEN

https://i2.wp.com/underworldlive.com...60%2C360&ssl=1

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

When the female singing comes in I looked around to make sure I didn't have audio playing from a second source. This is surely one of the very few instances of women singing (as opposed to speaking) on Underworld tracks.

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Beautiful Burnout!

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

hah...same
this track's been around since '03 hasn't it? never heard it with the female vocals though...

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Is that Nina Nastasia signing? They're the Best Mamgu / You Do Scribble lyrics. I wonder how many more earthed collabs there are with her if it is her.

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Am I the only one hearing harsh distortions during the female vocal part? Especially around the 4:43 and 9:20 marks


These were not present in the original version of the Biro The Leggy track as far as I recall :(

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Yeah there's definitely some clipping or something going on in those spots.

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Yeah there's some horrible distortion going on with the female vocal... seems to be all the way through...

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

It doesn't sound entirely like clipping, more an error with the file - I used to get the same sound when ripping CDs from a old, worn-out CD drive. Very strange.

Also...

I really love this photo.

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Is the 'female' singing not just Karl's voice somehow being manipulated to sound like a female? Could that be why it's distorted in places?

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

No on both, the timbre of the vocals would not the way it is if it was originally Karl, and the process wouldn't cause this kind of distortion.

I'm not sure what's causing it though... might be intentional, a sample-rate error (which sounds similar but not quite like this), artifacts from a very bad 2006 timestretching algo (does sound like the vocals were slowed down without pitch changing), or maybe an audio rendering error, baked into the master or from trying to render a 13 year old project file.

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

maybe redownload it? the version I just got this morning sounds fine

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

yea - weird!

I redownloaded from the original link - and I don't hear the distortion at 4:43

As WhiteNoise mentioned... I don't think it was something wrong with the original mp3 itself, but maybe it was some issue with rendering (b/c the distortion was specifically on the vocal, and it didn't seem to effect the other elements)

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

yeah when I streamed it yesterday there was definitely something wrong with it though I didn't know if it was the file or lag on either side.

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Definitely fixed on the d/l this morning.

So...who’s the girl? Biro has always been an interesting take on Beautiful Burnout (or vice versa), but the vocals make this take pretty special.

I would LOVE to hear a massive remix/mash-up of this & Beautiful Burnout.

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

AND THEN the R59 live mix! let's make this go 30+ min

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Some re-mixing shenanigans happened overnight as the new file shows a different spectrogram with what appears to be "softened" vocal parts:

Yesterday's version:
https://i.ibb.co/85j411B/Underworld-...omford-Dub.png

Today's version:
https://i.ibb.co/HBySwq5/Underworld-...ford-Dub-2.png

Nice to see they noticed the feedback and released a fixed version :)

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

I'll take up the mashup challenge if I can find some time. It won't be fancy!

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Fairly certain i like it better than Beautiful Burnout.
Love those female vocals
Haunting

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

they even sent out a second email confirming they messed up the first one

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

There was another version (live jam?) played at the Tribute to John Peel back in December 2004. The one that has the Asian guy sample. Not sure if you all know this already

I extracted the track and put it up here.

Slightly different from the first version (January 2004?). It has and the 'junkies, criminals, fugitives' sample (looong outro) as well as others too. Audience can been heard throughout the track, though

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Not sure, but it could be Clodagh Simonds from Fovea Hex. I think it sounds like her - and they worked with her while making OwB.

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

If I recall correctly, during one of the old Lemonworld broadcasts Rick said that Beautiful Burnout had the longest gestation time of any Underworld track up to that point. That must have been sometime between 2006-2008. I suppose that development would have been about five years? I wouldn't be surprised if I'm fucking up the timeline.

But I'm curious to know if there's a subsequent track that took even longer?

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Biro the Leggy first appeared in the wild at Electraglide 2000, so its inclusion on OwB in 2007 put its gestation at about 7 years.

Bird 1 later blew that away. It debuted (as Strumpet) in the wild at that same Electraglide 2000 show. So when it was finished on Barking, that was almost 10 years.

Always Loved a Film also went 7 years, first debuting at Electraglide 2003 (and being started in the studio in April 2003 according to Rick in a radio show).

You could maybe count stuff like Are You Rockstar, which went 22 years from its XFM debut in 1997 till its download release this year. Similarly Santiago Cuatro was recorded in April 2008 and released 8 years later on Barbara Barbara. But both of those were essentially unchanged from their initial debut till their official release, so I don't consider it the same as songs like Beautiful Burnout and ALAF which were iterated constantly during their development period.

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Marvelous. Thanks, T. You're the best!

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Agreed! I never would have been able to piece together all of that!

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Is there still a live download link for this, or could someone put it somewhere for me? :)

Re: Biro The Leggy (Romford Dub)
 

Here you go