Material in Progress

[Mike]

As Underworld fans, we are in the very unique position of Karl and Rick allowing us to hear pieces of work in progress and sharing the direction of projects that are currently 'unfinished'.

Personally, im glad that Underworld allow us to have access to this material, we used to love all the bits we got off Underworld Live back in the early days when they were a bit more private... one gem that springs to mind was the early verion of KOS.

However, playing devils advocate...

I was chatting to Yannick about how that the whole thing has possibly become 'watered down' in the sense that when we haven't heard any truly 'complete' material for sometime, although we have had the treat of a bunch of new tracks that are work in progress.

Does this 'spoil' any possible finished version of a track, as you could be disapointed in the direction the project went? Or the suspense / suprise when you listen to an album for the first time?

I remember when i used to chat to someone on these forums (you know who your are hehe) quite alot about new albums etc... and he made a very good point about new releases... he refused to listen to any 'leaked' or published material, because he felt he wanted to hear it through the cd in in the right environment.. how it was mastered, and how it was meant to be listened to so that he would appriciate the true quality of Underworld..

So i guess the poll, and discussion is:

Would you prefer to hear new material in progress?
or
Would you prefer to hear new matieral complete first (maybye years down the line), then how it sounded in progress later?
or
Would you be happy JUST hearing complete material, however long it takes?

[dubman]

at the risk of stemming the intermittent goodness of peeking behind the scenes, i think that for the track itself itself the middle option seems best. best know the final, finished version to get all wrapped up in before you open the vault.

[BeautifulBurnout]

I quite like to hear the different versions of it as we are going along, myself. Very often when we hear something new we don't necessarily know if it's a wip or if it is the finished article anyway - or whether it will even see the light of day in an official format at all.

So yeah, keep giving us sneaky peaks, guys.

[Dirty0900]

Yer, I wouldn't see it as ruining the final product if you prefer mix 2 over the final cut which is mix 5 but its all down to personal taste really.

I can remember listening to when they played Exit Festival on Radio 1 and being blown away by Lenny Penny and You Do Scribble when they first aired as it was brand new and fresh. Same for Bamboo really, I really wouldn't know much about it apart from the version that is floating around on Youtube.

I think UW know what there doing and wouldn't give us everything to listen to, they've been doing this a while now.

[King of Snake]

it's just annoying when work in progress versions are better than the finished product, like ALAF (ok maybe it's still not finished).
In any case, they've been playing "in progress" material in the live shows pretty much from the very beginning of uw anyway, not to mention that even finished tracks get changed and keep growing when played live. A lot of people probably prefer certain live versions of tracks over their original "finshed" studio versions. This is just a part of what uw do and what makes them great. It keeps things interesting for us fans and for themselves as well.
remember it's all about process.

[34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j]

What KoS said is really correct, I don't think there's much distinction in the UW camp between "finished" and "not". That said it's a little frustrating to see all these awesome tracks floating out there on radio shows and bootlegs with dodgy quality, not knowing if they're even going to get an official release. I was so excited when "Parc" was finally released, and it's definitely one of my most played UW tracks now. I thought OwB was good but not really remarkable, but with just all the stuff they have floating out there I am sure they could drop another classic if they wanted to.

[lloyd]

Yeah i thought about to post that quote here too but since that was an interview/media babble i thought i'd better not, they've said that before and we had to wait a bit for it. things will come no doubt, hopefully soon.