"This is probably the fastest album we've ever made," says Underworld frontman Karl Hyde speaking from his studio in Britain. "We finished it two weeks ago, so that's a little over a year. It's been really fast." The electronic favorites are planning a release of their sixth album, the follow up to 2000's live effort Everything, Everything, this September on V2 Records.

So far the album is set to include "Two Months Off," "Momove," and "Sola Sistim," composed by Hyde and Underworld cohort Rick Smith; Darren Emerson left the group in 2000 to focus on his DJ career. "This is Rick's and my twenty-second year together," Hyde says. "So it's made no change in terms of the working process. There's been a fantastic atmosphere this last couple of years and we just got on with it. After our last show in Tokyo [in 2000], we decided we just wanted to stop everything and make music. We said to ourselves we're just gonna cut loose and write whatever we wanted to and however that came out was the album. So what's happened is the same people that worked on the record, that did most of the music on all the other records, have had a really great time."

Underworld will perform a handful of warm up shows throughout Europe this summer in preparation for their official live comeback at Britain's Creamfields festival on August 24th in Liverpool. "They asked us if we'd like to play and we hadn't really been thinking about where the first show would be and working with Cream was something we wanted to do for a long time," he says. "Kind of amazingly it coincided with the release of an album and to reaffirm our roots in dance music is important to us."

According to Hyde the band's live show, which is expected to hit U.S. shores at the end of this year, is in the planning stages at Underworld's graphic-design company, Tomato. "We had a production meeting last week and already that's expanding. They've been coming up with a lot of new things. The possibilities have expanded enormously since we last went out. They've been working on things that are quite remarkable. As to whether we can take them out, afford to take them out, or whether they work touring round the world remains to be seen. But that's something we have to move on very quickly so we can nail it down."

Right now, though, Hyde and Smith are happily gearing up for the album's release, which signifies the longevity of their partnership and friendship. "Neither of us had any intention of lasting this long," he says. "But neither of us had any intention of walking away from each other and I suppose that's [the key]. The challenge is still there. I still find working with Rick inspiring. We still come out with stuff that surprises us and delights us and we get paid for it. I mean, what a fantastic job. My granddad was a coal miner. I'm privileged, so I suppose that I'm kind of not stupid enough to walk away from it."

JOLIE LASH
(March 15, 2002)