It’s trite to say it, but I’m going to say it anyway. The Trainspotting soundtrack really did a number on us indie kids. Before then we were happy enough listening to ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’, ‘Slight Return’ and anything by Dodgy or Shed Seven. We were 15. We were blissful in our close-minded idiocy. We thought we’d never change.
And then this film called Trainspotting came along with all its magical realist beauty and stomach-churning tawdriness and we didn’t know what to do with it, except just stare in awe. And apart from all the drugs, and the swearing, and the endlessly quotable dialogue, and Ewan McGregor’s shaved head, the thing that drilled its way into our brains, that truly changed our lives forever was the music. Suddenly lanky-haired boys mindlessly strumming the same three-chords on a guitar and screeching into a too-high-placed microphone wasn’t enough for us anymore. Suddenly we had Blondie. Suddenly we had Brian Eno. Suddenly we had Iggy Pop. And perhaps more profound than any of these, was our introduction to Underworld. Not just because ‘Born Slippy’ would soundtrack a formative summer that bridged leaving school and going to college, and all the illicit, euphoric moments inbetween, but because suddenly we realised dance music could be so much more than the shit we’d heard before.
If you were a few years older than us in 1996 and already into dance music you’d have been well-versed in the rave scene or already heard Underworld’s dubnobasswithmyheadman and Second Toughest in the Infants. But for us, the only exposure we had to dance was “Charly Says’ by The Prodigy, the fucking Rednex and endless BBC News reports demonising neon-clad, mouth-chewing, pill poppers who looked like a scarier Bez. No wonder we stuck to nice, safe Ocean Colour Scene.
Underworld changed all this for us. It’s not that dance wasn’t intelligent, emotional and cathartic before they came along, it’s just that Underworld are the ones who smacked us over the back of the head and said “listen to this instead you narrow-minded twat.”
‘Born Slippy’ (which isn’t even an album track, but a B-Side) is far from their best moment. These would come later with 1999’s Beaucoup Fish and its glorious ‘Jumbo’ and exhilarating ‘Push Upstairs’, then later again with A Hundred Days Off‘s ebullient Two Months Off, which is the closest dance music has come to a natural high. And that brings us somewhat ramblingly to 2016’s Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future. It’s only seven tracks long, has an unwieldy title (that when you learn the background of is a real heartbreaker), is the ninth studio album in the duo’s two-decade long career, and yet against all odds, is their most triumphant work yet.
It’s the heavy percussion that gets you first. The pounding crash of rhythm and a wall of modulating bass that grabs your heart and swings it like a pendulum. ‘I Exhale’ is designed to get your attention and hold it for eight exhiliarting, emotional minutes. Then it’s ‘If Rah’, with its frazzled electric stabs, laconic beat and Karl Hyde’s everyman delivery, that makes you realise that some of your favourite bands in the world wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Underworld. There’s no way James Murphy would’ve felt brave enough to take the mic if it wasn’t for Hyde’s down-to-Earth patter, and certainly LCD Soundsystem wouldn’t have been such a massive crossover success if Underworld hadn’t paved the way first.
‘Low Burn’ is exactly the kind of subtle euphoria Underworld are the masters of. It builds layers of repeating harmonies and textures, ebbing and flowing, before giving way to a single elegiac trumpet. ‘Santiago Cuatro’ proves how little Underworld give a shit about what you may expect from them, it being a terribly moody instrumental featuring a single Middle Eastern guitar. ‘Motorhome’ is a simple, warm hug of a track, with a weird processed electric guitar that sounds like a bagpipe fed through a modem. It’s somehow still a pleasure to listen to.
The album ends with ‘Nylon Strung’, a drifting, plaintive work, full of love and warmth, and is exactly the sort of thing you’d want to help carry you gently into another existence. Which brings us to the title of the album, Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future. These were the last words spoken by Karl Hyde’s father to his mother before passing away. I don’t know whether this has consciously affected the whole timbre of the album, but it’s certainly a fitting analogy: finding blissful acceptance in the natural cycle of things. Optimism before everything.
Time and time again, Underworld have completely bent and broken the rules of dance music and Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future is nothing less than what you would expect from the duo: complex, beautiful, transformative, life-changing, philosophical… It’s exactly what I hope another generation of 15 year-old idiots hear so it can alter their perception of what dance music can be too.
Check out all the latest music releases in our new album reviews section, including this round-up featuring RJD2 and Zayn.
