Born Sleepy

[purlieu]

The Down Mix is glorious.

My introduction to Underworld was through NUXX, but not the obvious one: I was eleven, and for whatever reason, unusual things appealed to me. I remember going into my town's branch of Woolworths and seeing the single in there, and thinking 'this doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before'. Obviously Tomato's artwork has become a big part of the whole Underworld experience over the years, but even from a young age, the striking nature of the 1996 NUXX release got under my skin. The fact that the front cover contained the title, tracklist, credits and everything, with no images, and the whole thing being done in a messy, typewriter type way, was mindblowing to me. I went back in and bought the single when I got my pocket money a couple of days later, based entirely on the artwork. Nearly 12 minutes long, it was the longest track I had in my collection - not to be beaten until I bought Tubular Bells a year later (later to be another connection with UW through the Olympics).

I had absolutely no way to judge the song, other than being totally different to anything I'd ever heard before. Over the two CDs, I was introduced to various sounds and styles (longform dance tracks, the 909 in Dark Train), and of course Karl's lyrical and vocal style. It took a very long time to even get a remote idea of what the song was about (kids as school suggesting it was "nigger nigger white thing" not helping - something I've depressingly seen suggested since then), but between the internet and adulthood, the song has made more sense as time's gone on.

So to go back to the start of this drunken rant, the Down Mix is glorious. For me, it captures the mood of the lyrics far better than the original. There's such a melancholy to the words - the 'your mum squatted pissed down a tube hole' section particularly - that a more sensitive arrangement really suits it. I absolutely love the Get Well Soon cover of the song. This isn't at all a way of talking down the original which, despite its over-exposure, is still an incredible piece of music. But I'm all for versions of the song which focus on the more emotional aspect of it.

All this speculation and Slow Slippy will end up being the synths from the actual original version with a downtempo beat behind them or something, haha. But if there's a new track, I'd love another beautiful take on NUXX.