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October 26 - Nov. 2, 2000

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Underworld Live

Everything, Everything

(JBO)

This is a tour document of Underworld’s recent globetrotting effort in support of the studio album Beaucoup Fish. And just to make sure that everyone knows the music on Everything, Everything was performed live, the UK electronica trio have rechristened themselves Underworld Live for the release, and audience hysteria is annoyingly overemphasized for the FIrst full minute. Still, this release captures Underworld’s stadium techno in all its incandescent glory, highlighting the band’s knack for amalgamating various forms of electronic music into a galvanized, undulating mix. The FIrst track, “Juanita/Kiteless,” cackles with a “Tubular Bells”–like nirvana; the odd piano tinkles in “Push Upstairs” and “Shudder/King of Snake” playfully refer to house music even as the latter pulsates with the frigid disco of the Moroder/Summer classic “I Feel Love”; the skittish beats of “Pearls Girl” conjure the militaristic menace of drum ’n’ bass. Spastic vocalist/gyrater Karl Hyde sounds like a carnival barker as played by Jack Kerouac, shouting nonsensical phrases into a megaphone — though the techno balled “Jumbo” provides an oddly affecting diversion as Hyde’s whispers cascade over a tender synth-funk bass line and a demure rhythm. Everything is also a swan song of sorts for the trio: Darren Emerson, under the mistaken impression that the world needs another trance techno DJ, has since departed the group.

-- Patrick Bryant
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