Sykonee's 'Sportsing' Surveys: UNDERWORLD (The Non-Emerson Years)

Everyone loves Underworld (everyone, everyone...), but do they love all the Underworld there is? Probably not, because there's a lot more Underworld out there than most folks realize. For many, the music crafted as a trio of Karl Hyde, Rick Smith, and Darren Emerson is all they care to know. I cannot deny being part of that demographic, not from a lack of interest, but from trepidation they never could recapture the exhilerating highs the '90s brought to the band.

And, well, that may be true after a fashion, but I'd still hear plenty of positive buzz surrounding a post-Emerson Underworld, especially so their work in music scores and Danny Boyle Olympic collaborations. Maybe it was about time to properly scope out The Rest Of Underworld, hear if there was anything more worth listening to. And if I'm doing that, I may as well check out the rest of Karl and Rick's work while I'm at it. The two have been working in some sort of tandem for decades now, so surely a few tasty morsels exist among their extended catalogue.











As an aside, I am aware Rick Smith released a solo album of ambient material as well. I skipped that because it wouldn't make for the best 'sportsing' music, and couldn't easily find it anyway. Not that some of these other releases were readily available on standard music streaming services either, but at least YouTube provided what I needed for most of them. Yes, even a patchy playlist of Get Us Out Of Here.

I'm glad that Underworld seem to have found a solid second life this past decade with Barbara and Drift. Not that they horribly fell-off after Emerson left, but things did seem a little shakey for a spell there. I do want to give the full Drift series a serious run-through, but gads, that's an obscene amount of music for a single sitting. They've entered Pete Namlook levels of productivity!

As for what's next, I'm itchin' for a return to the realms of hip-hop, but something maybe a little less gangsta' ridden. Something that really gets back to The Roots of rap, if you feel what I'm sayin'.

ProtoU - Anomalies

Cryo Chamber: 2019

Her most popular album? Well, it's got the most scrobbles on Last.fm, which ain't too shabby seeing as how Anomalies came out much later than her earlier works like Lost Here and Khmaoch. Heck, even her collaboration with Purl, Sub Life, is dwarfed by how many plays Anomalies has garnered over a similar amount of time. You'd think getting exposure on Dronarivm would have yielded more plays there, but maybe I'm underestimating just how popular Cryo Chamber has gotten within not just dark ambient circles, but across other scenes as well. Or it just could be that literal eye-catching cover art luring folks in for a closer listen, unable to resist the hypnotizing glare of a burning sun over a concave valley. Truly one of the best from a label replete with captivating cover art.

And before any folks made of hay claim I'm just hopping on whatever bandwagon this album's gathered, I honestly always intended to grab it. However, as I postponed my latest Cryo Chamber bulk-buy for an unexpectedly long time, I missed the initial buzz over Anomalies. Or maybe not, those same scrobbling stats showing a healthy, consistent play cycle, at least among the Last.fm contingent. For a genre that has so many albums getting lost in the shuffle (just... so many albums), that's about as good as it gets.

And what has made Anomalies the runaway smash hit of ProtoU's discography (relatively speaking)? More of a focus on naturalist ambience, would be my guess. Not that Sasha hasn't dabbled in this field before, indeed this album treading similar ground as her debut Lost Here. However, she's taken many different paths in her dark ambient journey – sci-fi themes in Stardust and Echoes Of The Future; the occult with Khmoach, Metta, and Tomb Of Druids. Which is great if that's the dark ambient vibe you're down for at the time, but for most folks just getting their feet wet in the murky swamp, something that at least sounds grounded in our reality has some small comforting familiarity. Sure, you may be lost out in the woods with strange phenomena casting disconcerting visages across starless skies, but at least it's all natural, right? Right...?

Opener The Escape sure feels so, at least at first. Rather gentle and calming with soft, if chilly pads casting a mist over your earlobes, the drone does turn more mechanical and menacing, but not overbearingly so. And with such a tranquil piece of piano ambience in follow-up Transparent Clusters, such apprehensive thoughts are easily dismissed – the sound of rainfall certainly helps.

What's interesting about Anomalies is the back-and-forth of tone between tracks. Harsher pieces like Electric Grounds and Chamber Of Visions are followed by reflective respites in Lucid Sequences and Ghost In You , while ten-minute closer Pellucid Waters with Hilyard wraps everything back together. You'll come away feeling both confronted yet relaxed, challenged yet released. Like an intense Pilates workout, followed by a tender massage, for the mind and the soul.

Quantic - An Announcement To Answer

Tru Thoughts: 2006

I've known about Mr. Holland's Quantic project for a very long time now, even if it's only for a single track. It's a humdinger of tune, mind you, Time Is the Enemy capturing those same rugged-yet-blissed trip-hop vibes DJ Shadow made so immaculate on Endtroducing. Not that the bulk of William's music is in similar vein, which may be why I've long put off scoping out any more of his work beyond one song. You know how it goes with expectations, yo'. However, while perusing a Discogs seller's wares, I noticed this particular Qauntic album among their options, and figured now (then) was as good as any time to finally get something from the man, even if I knew nothing about his extended catalogue.

And quite extended it does reach, Mr. Holland releasing music to this day. What I find fascinating about it though, is how he's stuck with the same label through it all, Tru Thoughts. Some folks may know the print as the same one that Bonobo broke out on, indeed he and Quantic among the earliest acts getting the ball rolling for them. However, Simon Green saw, erm, greener pastures in hooking up with Ninja Tune, and while William's sampledelic acid jazz and trip-hop would have also fit snuggly among the Ninja roster, he instead stayed true to Tru.

But maybe Quantic felt some sort of tug and allure for that label, as the opening track in An Announcement To Answer, Absence Heard, Presence Felt, features the mournful strings of a traditional Oriental ditty, while a little soul-jazz rhythm grooves along and a sample name-drops New York City. And you know who else is known for such music? That's right, The RZA, who's chop-socky stylings also harken to Orientalism, which included a fascination for ninjas! Oh come on, even I'm not so stupid to make so strained a link as that, am I?

Anyhow, the second titular cut is an electro swing jam before electro swing ever got coined as something folks would call such loopy, jazzy tunes, but long after acid jazz was still in use. Sabor could too, but has too many Latin jazz influences to ever be considered electro swing, truly the whitest of all the jazz-dance genres.

Oh yeah, the Latin influences definitely dominate this album, even more than the New York City ones. In fact, Lord Discogs lists An Announcement To Answer as among the most collected records of descarga, something of a freeform jam variant of Cuban jazz. I assume this isn't a highly collected genre of music, mostly because much of it was made during the '50s through the '70s, so finding vintage vinyl of the stuff is rather rare. Figures a plunderphonic chap like Quantic would have ample amounts to craft an album out of, though he does bring in proper musicians too.

Still, this is a surprisingly brisk album, clocking in at under forty minutes. Methinks I'll need more than this to satisfy my Quantic interest longterm.

Various - Annexe (Cottage Industries 2)

Neo Ouija: 2002/2020

Though the original run of Neo Ouija never made a huge splash across the world of electronic music, it was successful enough to garner a dedicated cult following while it lasted. Among the various releases that helped solidify said following was a series of compilations called Cottage Industries, three volumes worth springing forth during its initial heyday. Whenever the label would stir awake after many years absence, it was usually a Cottage Industries collection that would declare its arrival.

In fact, it's about all that Neo Ouija releases now, including digital uploads and CD re-issues of the early editions. I even bought a few, but for some reason, those CDs never showed up. Hmm, are those the items that got switched for all those Intellitronic Bubble CDs? I swear, I appreciate all the various labels Lee Norris juggles with these days, but there's sadly been a few too many missing orders as of late for me to buy any more from them. One more reason to just stick with digital, I guess.

Annexe (Cottage Industries 2) came out two decades ago, and boy does looking at the track list ever feel like a time warp. So many names within the ambient techno and IDM scene getting their start here: Sense, Ambidextrous, Bauri... Erm, that's honestly all I recognize off hand. Hey, can't be a proper cult label known for giving ultra-obscure artists within your scene their starts if you don't have a compilation series doing the work for you. Like, where would the likes of Biosphere, Autechre, Black Dog, and Speedy J be without Artificial Intelligence, right? Okay, pretty well-off regardless, but you know what I mean.

And just because I'm not familiar with them doesn't mean some of the featured artists didn't have fruitful future careers. Yeah, names like Phonex, Idmonster, Sica, Pem, and Qeshi didn't amount to much after, but Yellow6, Maps & Diagrams, Kettel, and Ilkae remain active to this day. By and large though, many of the acts on Annexe had respectable output throughout the '00s before petering off as the '10s took hold. So it goes.

Ah yes, the music. Lots of simple, charming IDM and melodic, glitchy techno. It feels like Neo Ouija was throwing a little bit of everything into the original double-discer, which is great in providing variety. When you're dealing with music as esoteric as this, however, much of it can slip on by during a casual listen. So it's no surprise tracks with more melody in them (Sense's Icyltap, ENV(itre)'s Atodeq, Kettel's Nestingbox Seventeen, Qeshi's Island Dryad, Maps & Diagrams vs Pem's Orteip) stick with me more than the more experimental stuff (Qeshi's Schem, Sica's Mykeys, Tandy's Bell_Libbing). One thing's for sure, if you like your micro-pop rhythms, Annexe has you covered but good. Xela's Don't Talk To Strangers, Bauri's Neo Robot Party Crash, EU's Lytop, Ilkae's Pilve, and so on. Not that it's surprising, the early 2000's pretty much peak micro-pop within IDM circles. Darn clicks 'n' cuts hype machine...

David Cordero - And Stillness Came

Polar Seas Recordings: 2022

Another new ambient artist on another new ambient label. They just keep on a' comin', don't they? Mind, we're not dealing with spankin' brand new here, as I've grazed by David Cordero before, appropriately enough on Archives. Meanwhile, even if this is the first item I'm reviewing from Polar Seas Recordings, I'm fairly certain I've name-dropped this label. Hell, I've been wearing their t-shirt for months now, so the Canadian print has to have come up once or thrice. Hm, does this mean I should do a label info dump, or an artist info dump? As I'll be coming back to Polar Seas down the line, let's focus on Mr. Cordero for now.

I should clarify that David is only new to me (and most of you, I wager), with a career that's spanned a couple decades. He was part of a Spanish post-rock band called Ursula, which had a modest run of albums through the '00s. When that ended, he got into the label business with Knockturne Records, contributing occasional music along the way. The print only lasted a few years though, after which David refocused on music making at a more steady clip. Getting some traction on labels like Archives and Dronarivm, things really seemed to take off at the start of this decade, David's discography ballooning with many releases and collaborations. Being forced indoors for a spell with the rest of society apparently had that affect on a lot of musicians, especially those with a post-rock background moving into the realms of ambient.

As befitting someone with a background in actual musicianship, Mr. Cordero's brand of ambient leans more towards the modern classical variety. Not that instrumentation is highly prevalent, indeed most of the pieces on And Stillness Came relying on drawn-out tones lazily gliding along. It's just when a hefty bulk of my recent ambient listening entails fancier studio tricks like overdubbing and glitch-fuzzing, hearing a collection of tracks sounding far more 'traditionalist' has me thinking more the realms of Harold Budd than Tangerine Dream.

And as if that Budd comparison couldn't be more apt, opener Morning Loops is about as Buddy as it gets, gentle keyboard tones creating a soft blanket of reverb as they linger in the air, a soft bit of background distortion the only nod to contemporary ambient techniques. Follow-up Aysmmetric Feelings with Miguel Otero provides an extra layer of dubby timbre, but generally treads similar territory, while Booleans simplifies things to sustained minimalism.

None of these pieces are terribly long, the truly tranquil, softly glitchy Transitory Ghosts with Suso Saiz the lengthiest things get at just a shade over six minutes. At ten tracks long, that does leave And Stillness Came a rather brief listening affair, with many drifting by with barely any notice. Heck, with Empty Set mostly field recordings atop soft tones, you could think the album already over, should your window be left open. As I said, ambient music in its purest form.

Moss Covered Technology - And His Many Seas

Facture: 2018

Of all Greig Baird's album, this one immediately caught my eye. I'll never tire of nautical themed music, whether they be ambient drone or Viking metal, so this was a shoe-in for yours truly. More than that though, I've always envisioned my destiny to be like the chap we see on the cover art, living out my greying days as an old man by the sea. Not that I'm a man of the sea, mind you, though if I could have any job in history, a cartographer from the Exploration Age certainly ranks high up there. For now, I'll suffice living by the sea, gazing wistfully at waves washing upon the shore, and all that chum rot.

While Greig's inspiration for this album had more to do with navigating his stormy feelings over a father's illness, the label that initially picked this up didn't hold back in running with the nautical allegory. Indeed, part of Facture's manifesto is loading their releases up with all manner of vintage swag and paraphernalia, such that it feels like you're unlocking some Victorian Era time capsule. I'm talking post cards, cloth-bound books, weathered prints, celluloid negatives, glass slides, film reel strips... just an insane amount of detail and craftsmanship goes into these. Naturally, they're also a bit pricey, and almost immediately sell out what limited stock they manufacture. Man, good thing I'm no longer so beholden to FOMO of these sort of releases, right? *twitch, twitch*

As with Sodium Light, where I took my Moss Covered Technology plunge, And His Many Seas simply titles each track Sea (his 'many seas', see? Sorry, had to...). For a body of music that supposedly has some narrative to it, Greig doesn't provide many hints of what each piece means. Maybe there were more guiding suggestions as part of the whole Facture package, and you can regardless glean particular feelings and emotions from the eight Seas within. If you need your ambient music more specific of intent, however, this may not be the album for you.

As for the sort of ambience MCT does offer, I found it a surprisingly varied assortment. The first couple were about as I expected, Sea #1 featuring layered, sweeping drones, while Sea #2 goes more dusty and crackly with its delicate organ tones. Neither are terribly long, so just as well Sea #4 brings us the album's centrepiece at eleven minutes. At first quiet and gentle, drones gradually build upon themselves, growing richly dense, but never overwhelming. Sea #5 is almost bright and cheery as a follow-up, and a modern classical sort of way, while the remaining pieces has me reminded of Archives' brand of dubby ambient. Not a bad comparison to make at all.

Can't deny I'm letting some personal bias cloud my enjoyment of And His Many Seas. Such music playing in my head as I rock in an old chair, porch facing west across the ocean, a stiff salty breeze bristling through long, white whiskers upon my cheek.

Goasia - Amphibians On Spacedock

Suntrip Records: 2014

I hate the word I'm gonna' use to describe this album. It's such a loaded adjective, one that has gained too much negative connotation for my liking. It needn't be so, plenty of positive sounds equally associated with its use. Yes, a lot of that is in a sort of ironic way, but not always either. Some musicians have parlayed this particular stylistic choice into highly successful careers, a few even attaining 'national treasure' status. Unfortunately, such examples remain few and far between, the rest getting this descriptive tag often mocked and derided in the process. And hey, I've been no less guilty of this too, using this word in more negative light than positive. I suppose this obfuscating paragraph is just me trying to assuage a guilty conscience over my imminent use of the word, as I don't intend to mean it in a harshly critical manner. I could just not, but I can't think of any better one within the entirety of the convoluted English language than what I'm about to use to describe my impression of Goasia's Amphibians On Spacedock.

That all sorted? Right, then. I find this album rather corny.

It's corn I like, absolutely, but I cannot deny it being there just the same. The reason calling a goa trance album corny comes so loaded is because the genre – indeed, the entire psy trance scene – cotinues having credibility issues, with good cause. A bunch of cyber-crusties flailing about the woods or desert under the stars during significant astrological events? It's just not serious dancing, mate, not like huddling as sardines in a grimy warehouse or hopping in a spot with a phone in the air while million-dollar visual spectacle barrages your senses. Okay, electronic music in general can be corny, if you stand back a bit, but the outsider's nature of the psy scene always works extra hard for acceptance.

Some of this duo's choice in melodies though, I can't help but call them corny, in a pulpy sci-fi, Buck Rogers sort of way. Opener God, Good Morning is just so gosh-darn plucky and earnest, I half expect a young Jerry Mathers to pop up in a Space Cadet outfit waiting for his first adventure. Hell, maybe that is supposed to be Lil' Beaver on the cover! Tracks like Promised Land and Sundance are no less over-eager in their leads, while cuts that lean more into standard goa riffs don't fare much better. Gotta' hand it to Goasia though, they don't hold back, fully committed and competent in the style of psy trance they want to make. I just need to be in a the right type of mood to take in that there corn, y'know?

Fortunately, it's not all maize straight through. The titular cut has some proper acid tear-out moments, while Dolphins Of Jupiter gets more 'serious' with its squiggly acid sounds. And as far as final track Tetrodotoxin goes, that's some mighty fine vintage Tristan vibes I'm hearing there, b'gosh.

Jessy Lanza - All The Time

Hyperdub: 2020

While I'm far from a Hyperdub disciple, they are a label I confidently return to whenever I'm interested in hearing something outside my comfort zone. And anytime Burial so much as sneezes, it's enough to get the Hyperdub, erm, hype-train going again, such that I'll gander over to their Bandcamp for a look-see. I must have been feeling particularly saucy on my last visit, indulging in a couple items so far off my usual lane, I may as well have completely changed highways, one of which being this here All The Time from Jessy Lanza.

I've crossed paths with Ms. Lanza before, as she had a few tunes on that Hyperdub 10th anniversary box-set I covered a few years back. More specifically, she featured in Hyperdub 10.2 - aka: the R&B CD. She apparently failed to make enough of an impression for me to mention her in that write-up, but to be fair, she was surrounded by the likes of Burial, Cooly G, and Ghostface Killah in that track list. I did generally like her tunes, just there were so many other dope cuts that were quicker in catching my ear, is all. Not so when I last browsed through Hyperdub's latest clutch of releases, Jessy's sweet croon instantly luring me in for a closer listen. Or maybe it was just that simple, syrupy funk rhythm in Lick In Heaven doing the trick. Could be, could be.

I guess I should get into who Jessy Lanza is. I wish I had more to say than what a standard wiki or Discoggian bio offers, but I don't. I'm diving into this artist about as fresh and raw as can be, which is part of the fun in of itself. Can't grow old and stale settling on the familiar, gotta' get out there and hear other music and newer musicians. Even if said musician has been in the game for over a decade now, it's still new to me, dammit! If you need some background, here's the short-short version: classically trained, took a liking to jazz and R&B, gained plenty of plaudits in the nascent neo-soul movement of the 2010s, fusing her influences with UK garage and synth-pop sensibilities.

And that's basically what we have with All The Time. Music arrangements are mostly sparse, letting the bass bubble about simple electro and footwork rhythms. Jessy uses plenty of multi-tracking on her voice with various pitch changes and dub effects. It's nothing fancy on the surface, but has plenty of depth the more you peel back the layers. It all rather sounds as though she's performing solo at a club that's just emptied out after last call, a strangely isolated vibe for such seemingly chipper music. Which makes some sense as part of this album was written during pandemic lock-downs, Jessy moving cross-continent due to life circumstances. Those are some very lonely roads throughout the mid-west at the best of times. Can only imagine how desolate it got when most folks weren't vacationing.

Neotropic - The Absolute Elsewhere

Slowcraft Records: 2018

No, really, I've been meaning to return to Neotropic for a while. Things just slip by, and before you know it, nearly a decade has passed before the opportunity arises again. In this case, it was by way of James Murray's Slowcraft Records and spotting Ms. Maslen's alias among the label's catalogue. “Oh yeah!” says I, “It's been an age since I reviewed Mr. Brubakers Strawberry Alarm Clock. I didn't even know she was still active. How remiss of me.”

Actually, I have heard her sporadically since then, though I didn't realize it. Turns out she's been a frequent collaborator with The Future Sound Of London, most recently contributing some vocals on Environment Five (aka: the one with the power line towers on the cover). They also apparently sampled her on Yage, plus on the song Osho from The Isness. And if that wasn't crazy enough, I just discovered she performed with the FSOL lads on Top Of The Pops, when Papua New Guinea got tapped for a spot on the show. I guess Lisa Gerrard wasn't available.

Actually-actually, this may not be as odd a thing as you'd think, as it turns out Riz Maslen has some serious modern classical, operatic chops in her as well. Right, they may have always been there, I just never came across them when she was mostly producing way-leftfield trip-hop. Going by this album though, it's certainly a field she's more than adept at.

Opener Overture signals the oncoming herald of doom (or something), all moody atmosphere as the horns of war emerging from the hills. Okay, I may be overselling this a little, but it cannot be denied it's an effective piece of music setting a particular tone. Bring on the battle! Oh, wait, it's already over in Your War, a sombre dirge of piano, strings, and Riz' angelic voice (an angel of death, that is!). If you thought this piece was grim, it's got nothing on the desolation of follow-up Wreckage Of Dreams. You know the FSOL track Everything In The World Is Doing Something Without Me? Yeah, like that.

It's not all morose vibes in this album though. The ethereal Byzantium, while sombre in its own right, at least feels like there's some hope on the horizon. Elsewhere, Pleiades is the sort of piece that could use with a Cate Blanchett narration over top, while The Restless gets downright meditative with its low thrum of chants and instrumentation. Then there's Nyolat, the lone proper nod to electronic music with sludgy industrial rhythm as Riz gets her operatic on. Huh, I honestly get more dark ambient Delerium vibes off that one than anything FSOL. Not that Bill and Rhys never got 'inspiration' from Brian and Garry on multiple occasions.

At seven tracks long, The Absolute Elsewhere is rather short, but nor is it the sort of album that needs to be longer than it is. I don't think I could indulge in such melodramatic depression any longer as it is.

Aes Dana - (a) period.

Ultimae Records: 2021/2022

Another CD I didn't expect to get, though for totally reasonable reasons. Plenty of positive buzz surrounding this album led to a quick sell-out, one I'm sure even Aes Dana himself couldn't have predicted. I certainly didn't, letting (a) period. slip by without a buy. Whenever does Ultimae Records sell out of CD stock anyways? Okay, they always did, and still occasionally do. I just wasn't expecting this one too, y'know? It's not like earlier albums from Aes Dana such as Perimeters and Pollen have disappeared from the Ultimae shop.

And because I can't go any review without finding something to get naggy over, let's get my two issues out of the way. First, why has (a) period. gotten a quick re-issue, but nothing from Aes Dana's older catalogue yet? I've hesitated on grabbing the digital versions of Memory Shell and Aftermath and the H.U.V.A. Network albums for a lo-o-o-ong time, always holding out hope they'll see a spiffy CD re-issue again at some point. If Vincent is fine doing the deed with his recent material, why not these out-of-print projects as well?

Moving onto point two, why the change-up in cover art for the re-issue? I know many of Ultimae's re-releases have seen changes to their artwork, but not always. Inks, for instance, has seen a couple re-issues, and retained its lumpy, grooved look through them all. I feel changing (a) period. from a fog enshroud suspension bridge to some surf wash somewhat ruins the vibe of what this album accomplished. Indeed, I'd argue part of the reason this got so much attention was because of that artwork, so perfectly complimenting the moody ambience within. Even the Bandcamp digital version had its cover art changed. Man, I hope that doesn't jack the first edition CD up to ludicrous amounts of second-hand market money.

Okay, I've wasted too many words musing about these things. This album's great, essentially Mr. Villuis going about as ambient as he's ever gone for the duration of a full album. Most of the rhythms used are highly subdued and minimalist, sometimes barely a heartbeat. In fact, the spare times he does use regular beats, such as in the opener Foreword and near-closer Ambivalent, almost feel unnecessary (the requisite dub techno cut of Overpass a lone exception). No, (a) period. is primarily focused on moody tones, rich timbre, glitchy fuzz, overdubbed drone, and tranquil field recordings. Much of it played real quiet too, so you really feel the space between the sounds. And given how expansive Vincent's mastering techniques have always been, you can imagine how much of a feast for the ears this album is.

Seriously, it's as though all those years spent perfecting his studio craft has seen its ultimate form manifest itself with this album. This is the sort of music worth investing in those high-end headphones or expensive surround sound systems, even when it moves at such a glacial pace. Really lets you take in the sonic scenery, it does.