"retrosonic radio" presents underworld | 2000 - 2007

[DocJones]

only fyi : i forgot to rename the files properly & u'll see wrong "( wav )" tags in the filenames , sorry !

i've jus' realized that i haven't renamed the converted wav files properly with an "( mp3 )" tag @ the end , as i've already uploaded the 1st hour / file , but the files are indeed in mp3 format & not wav !

btw : i've planned to do two more 3 hours long special shows in early 2008 : part 2 about uw in the 90s ( scheduled date so far is the 27th of jan. ) & part 3 about uw & freur ( ! ) in the 80s ( scheduled date so far is the 30th of march ) !

cheers !

olaf - "the alien doc"

[darktrain]

Originally Posted by DocJones

btw : i've planned to do two more 3 hours long special shows in early 2008 : part 2 about uw in the 90s ( scheduled date so far is the 27th of jan. ) & part 3 about uw & freur ( ! ) in the 80s ( scheduled date so far is the 30th of march ) !

Sorting through stuff on the iPod today and came across the first set of this show from late 07. Anyone know if the 2nd and 3rd parts ever materialized?

[BrotherLovesDub]

thanks doc!

[negative1]

excellent interview...if you haven't heard it yet..
go listen to it...

it addresses many of the issues people have
with the albums/concerts/singles etc...

very informative...

oh yeah, the music is excellent too!

later
-1

[negative1]

ok,

i'm going to have to transcribe this interview..

this is REQUIRED LISTENING FOR ALL UNDERWORLD FANS..
(unless of course, it has appeared in other places, and i
just haven't bothered to read it...)

honestly, yes, all this information has probably appeared
before....but i guess just hearing it all in one place is
especially timely..

later
-1

[DaddyAdv]

An awesome interview, from the usual press questions to some very insightful answers by Karl. Thanks Doc!

BTW, the questions sound quite like the ones from the interview I translated from the german Synthesizer-Magazin, but the answers are different !

P.S.: try to think english

[negative1]

interviewer:
the first question is about the album title
'oblivion with bells' what does this strange
album title actually mean, because its not even
know to english speaking people, so there must
be a reason for this album title 'oblivion with
bells'

karl: i think it is actually, yeah, i think it
is, in England if somethings got bells on,
its always got that extra bit, you know, its
got that little bit over the top and, and so
i guess thats where the combination comes from,
its whatever it is with that extra little bit
and its a line from one of the songs on the album

i: on the album, there are not maybe, as many dancefloor
tracks, and some old underworld fans might be
surprised, why this change has come

k: well funnily enough, the first one crocodile
is doing really well in ibizia at the moment,
and getting really good recognition on the dancefloor
yeah, so we already knew there was a continuous
link to the dancefloor, it was very important to
us that it is more gentle than other records from
the past, and that for us is a good thing, cos
we don't want to carry on making this traditional
sound because thats what underworld has to do,
but also last year we collaborated with our friend
sven vath at the cocoon club and we very specifically
altered some of our music to fit in with his dj set
we were jamming you know, live four hours on the internet,
and uh we changed some of the beats, slowed some
of the tunes down, and made them a, a bit kind of
deeper, and things like crocodile were very, very
much kind of altered trying to fit in with sven

i: uh karl, you are about 50 years old, isn't it bit old to
make a dancefloor music, or music that underworld is producing
right now?

k:laughs, well that's what happens when you stick around,
laughs

i: um, you've worked on two different albums, uh, soundtrack
albums, uh , one for the film breaking and entering, and
the other one sunshine, with danny boyle, umm yeah, can
you tell us something about this, and uh yeah the influences
and everything else


k: the soundscapes have always been there, in our music,
you know the electronics the ambiencies the orchestral
pieces and the fusion with guitars, they've always been
there, but whats happened in this last period of three or
four years, is that we've come into contact with things
that reminded of us our roots, one of them would be the
two film scores that we've done, one of them would be
a passion, a renewed passion to German electronic music
because through the German club scene, and another one
would be the web radio show that we do on underworldlive.com
where we're playing out lots of independant music of all
musical genres, that have reminded us about our eclectic,
eclectic outlook on life so those three have really
invigorated a passion for being ourselves, i suppose really

i: you also have an interest in the German club scene, and
also in krautrock, invented in Germany, can you tell uh
something about this, uh, its the uh information behind it?

k: people were telling us about what was happening in the
club scene over here, and uh we were interested and were
doing the web radio shows, so we said lets go out and
buy some records and see whats happening, and we've really
got into it, its people like james holden , ricardo villalobos,
Dominic Eulberg, matthew johnson, pig and dan, and the
cocoon label, these these kind of things were really
fascinating us, and we were talking with sven, and saying
hey what are you playing and listening to what he was
doing,


i: of course there was a big success with one of your tracks,
maybe one of the biggest success, with the song born slippy.nuxx
for the film trainspotting and yeah were you anxious to do
this again, or is it something that you didn't want to
repeat uh, uh the same formula so to say, and do such a song
for a soundtrack, how would you uh say whats the best to do
the next time for a soundtrack?

k: it was funny really, i mean this is, this is our fifth
film with danny, and he asked us to do sunshine while we
were just finishing breaking and entering , and breaking
and entering had already put oblivion with bells back by
about a year, and we said to danny, look there's no way,
we could do this, we'd love to, we'd really love working
with you, but we can't, desperate to get back in the studio,
and then he showed us the rushes of the film, and we went,
we hate you, you know, we have to do this, and we we we
scored that movie, we wrote a lot of music for that film,
which meant a song like glam bucket was written for
sunshine, and actually because it didn't make it to the
film, and we love the music so much, we included it in
the album, but yes, you're right, there was this,
at the end, there's a film called, a track called,
peggy sussed, which comes on right at the end ,and
we went oh i hope this isn't going be a born slippy
you know, lets just let it go, you know..


i: talking about, uh the first single from oblivion with
bells album, crocodile, why did you choose this specific
song when there's more dancefloor like , or most of the
tracks or the majority of the tracks on oblivion with bells
are not


k: it was by choice, i mean we've been doing this for a long
time, rick and i, we've been doing this for 27 years now,
and we're still together, with steven hall, the head of
junior boys own , of course he's a part of this team,
and our connection with the dancefloor is really important
to us, really important to us, and its always been a way
of publishing our work without the necessity for it to be
a big pop hit record, and that energy that we get from a
a connection with the dancefloor, is is is paramount to
what underworld is about, like, its like the rails that a
train runs on for us, and so when we had that tune, and
there were a couple of other tunes that could have been
on this album, that were very dancefloor, but we just
didn't want to put them on the record, that was the one,
where we want to go back into the clubs, the first statement
that we make is that we want to go back into the clubs,

i: theres also a song called ring road, on the oblivion with
bells album, whats the story behind it, and what, tell us
something about, yeah, the song ring road

k: yeah, john cooper clark, i was going , i'm glad you
said that, oddly enough, you know people have made the
connection with the streets, and you go, well thats kind
of interesting, like the streets, but of course we were,
we were talking about the urban condition before that,
and john cooper clark was before us, and
Linton Kwesi Johnson , and uh, the great inspiration for me is the
last poets, and umm, and that day i was listening to a
last poets album and going on , and don't know what to do,
um, we've got this groove, i think i'll go for a walk,
and write about it, and come back and sing about
it, which is what happened

i: um, you've also had a little book, where you've um
put some note in it about your hometown romford, uh,
what is actually , uh, the uh, true about the, this
information about you, uh, can you tell us about this

k: yeah, yeah really well walk when i'm completely
stuck, i'll take my notebook, which travels with me
everywhere , and i'll go for a walk, and i'll write,
about everything that i see, in a very matter of fact
way, not poetic, not trying to be a , you know no
poetic license, going to write about everything i see,
thats normal in my town, and thats what i did, i walked
in a big circle, came back to the studio, and right,
i'm just going to sing that, it was like a , uh, an
uno card , uh take a walk and sing about the things
you see, do not deviate, sing exactly what you have seen

i: ah, you're living in romford, essex, and uh yeah, whats
the connection with the london club scene then?

k: no, no, we've lived in london a long time ago, but we
moved out to essex, gosh, in about the end of the eighties,
and uh, essex is pretty important to us, this is something
about east london people , the energy there, the generosity
the warmth of spirit, the , i haven't found anywhere else
in England that i've lived, i think in the north you get it very
much now, but there's something about east london that i really
like

i: what kind of interesting bands do you have discovered for
yourself, and like to listen to right now

k: you know, the whole kind of, new rave, and Shikari, and
the klaxons, and people like justice from france, and uh simian
mobile disco, and these people are doing some really interesting
things with representing us with sounds that are familiar but
in a different way, just a different way, but in a way that we
do,and we have , but they're doing in their own way, their own
signature and we're very excited by that, in fact bringing
simian mobile disco on tour with us when we come around Europe,
cos that's really exciting, cos i love that album, its a great
album




fixes by : bb, bld,
transcribed by : -1

[negative1]

i: another quite interesting song that also might be a single,
then is, boy boy boy, from the oblivion with bells album,
and i suppose there's also a special story about it, so tell
us about the song boy boy boy

k: interesting isn't it yeah, that larry mullen plays on that,
from u2, we wrote that, and um , rick programmed the drums to
sound like that, and its, its an autobiographical story, i sat
in a shopping mall, near romford, and i'm looking at all the
things going around me, and i'm just writing them down, and
its making me reflect upon when i was kid and stuff that used
to happen at home and then i sort of come back to whats happening
in the shopping mall again, and also about a kind of journey,
of you know, recovery and all of that thing that they , that one
goes through when you put drugs and drink down, and as you have
to, do to live to be an old person, and as you said
quite rightly earlier on, and we had this piece of music, and we
really really really really liked it, and rick suggested that we
give larry a call, cause he's been a supporter of the band since
the first album, and uh he was very enthusiastic about doing something
on the record, and i did some playing on this track, i think he
did a remix for it as well, larry's a really good bloke, a really
good bloke, but i think, like any drummer, probably doesn't get
to do the amount of things that the singer gets to do, you know,
so its really nice to be working with him,


i: um, you've recorded the album oblivion with bells, in the
legendary abbey road studio where also the beatles have
recorded and other bands, why uh did you go there, and
was it something special that you also wanted to record in there,
in abbey road studios then?

k: well most of it we recorded all over the place, on our
laptops, in our home studios, lemonworld, our main studio
in essex , some of it we recorded at abbey road, because
we had such a good time putting the soundtrack to breaking
and entering, with gabriel yared there, um we wanted to
go back to abbey road, our first group freur recorded
one track in abbey road, in the old beatles studio, in fact
i think we were one of the last groups to use the old desk,
and we hadn't been back since 82, when gabriel got us to
go back and record there, in that fantastic studio, we just
had to go back , um so we had a great time


i: you've also used a lot of live instrumentation on oblivion
with bells, thats also something thats not the usual way
uh so uh why that?


k: yeah, we always play a lot of live instruments , more than
people actually think, because we actually treat a lot of the
instruments , but yeah largely i would think that after our
experience with working with gabriel yared on the breaking
and entering sountrack, uh we three , gabriel rick and i
encouraged each other to play our traditional instruments,
gabriel was a very fine piano jazz player, very fine, and
um so we formed an improvising trio , i was playing a lot
of guitar, of all different sort, classical, flamenco,
whatever, rick was playing piano, and keyboards and gabriel
was playing piano and keyboards, that kind of inspired us
to carry on doing that, and of course, i love ricks keyboard
playing, i absolutely love his piano playing, and he kept
encouraging me to play guitar, so we just carried on doing
that


i: you've used a lot of vocoder stuff on the album, and uh
yeah the vocoder has become your best friend, so to say, karl,
um and vocoder is a very useful instrument or why so much vocoder
on the album?


k: we always used vocoders, always, we've got these very old
roland vocoders that we use, cos they have that very particular
sound, we've tried lots of different ones, but there were these
ones that we've got, we've got three of them, cos they're very
old and you know, once they break, its very hard to get them
fixed, they have to be sent off to a little old man (laughs)
i kid you not, its this little old man in London, who's the
only man in Britain that can fix them, and so the go off ,
and the two of them always travel on the road with us, one of
them stays in the studio so we vocode from the guitar, we use
them, its a sound we've always loved, maybe its from Kraftwerk
i don't know, we love Kraftwerk, so we've always loved that
in laurie anderson, and superman, what an legendary piece of
work that was amazing


i: you also use repetition as a kind of uh yeah, a musical idea
in your songs, yeah and there's a recurring theme of this

K: yeah, it comes from funk, it comes from funk, really loving funk,
and sly and family stone, james brown, parliament, funkadelic, you know
the great funk bands, where the guitarist plays a loop over and over
and over again, and it doesn't change, it keeps repeating so, the
energy keeps growing, the bass player and the drummer keep playing
in loops, and they're all playing in loops, and over the top of that,
other instrumentalists and singers freeform and they move around on
top of that, and then when Kraftwerk started to do that, where they've
got the machine doing the repetitive beats, and the humans moving
about over the top of it, we got so excited about that, there's
something about in the kinetic energy between the precision of the
machine and the human that plays over the top of it,i mean theres
a guitarist, its fantastic to play over the top of a machine,
because its bang on the beat, you can drift about, but keep coming
back to the beat, i did a lot of session work in the early eighties,
a very famous drummer was on one of those sessions, in california,
and i nearly got sacked from the session, i'm not going to, i'm not
going to say who it was but i i nearly got sacked from the session,
because the guy said to me, um you're playing out of time, and i'm
playing rhythm guitar since i've been ten years old, you know, thats
what i grew up playing rhythm and funk, you're playing out of time
and i'm like, i don't think so, i don't think so, and they were
discussing in the control room , sacking me from the session,
and i said, look i'm bored, give me a drum machine and i'll just
jam out in the studio, and they listened to me jamming to the drum
machine, and it was smack on, cos i had grown up playing to drum
machines, and they got me back in the studio and said its the drummer,
and i went, i know its the drummer, i know its the drummer you know,
its hard to work with drummers for me now, drummers have a natural
ebb and flow, which a lot of people find beautiful, i find it really
hard because i love to work to a machine, cos i'm not very good at
timing sometimes, and it makes me sound good.


transcribed by : -1

[the mongoose]

YAAAA, UUUNDEHRWURRLD IST UN BESTEST ACT OF ELECTROONIKS UN THE WORLD ALL AROUND.

[gaborez]

thanks for that, -1