Going against the flow of the usual music release tides, Underworld have sprung their latest material on us today as they embark on a journey upstream. The duo have chosen to release a single without the usual hype, promotional copies and press that can not only promote a release but leave it open to attack from the world of illegally downloaded and distributed mp3s.
'Lovely Broken Things' is the first material in The Riverrun Project and was released TODAY for download exclusively via www.underworldlive.com. The release comes with 28min 36sec of mp3, a gallery containing 177 photos and the cover artwork as pdf; all for a fiver (in GBP).
On this download-only listening experience, their first material in over 2 years, Rick and Karl said: "The idea is to give us the chance to stretch out into areas we have only been able to touch on with traditional album releases, and give you the listener an underworld experience over the time it takes to listen to one side of an old vinyl album. Another aim of changing things to this more immediate format is to give us the chance to respond to what's happening musically out there in the world and put an underworld spin on things more than once every three years. None of this spells the end of traditional albums, remixes, tours, gigs it's just a way of getting music to you without the help of a multinational everytime we feel inspired."
So how does it sound? It oozes in Underworld styling. The raw electro'ish parts combined with great abstract vocals swinging around channels, bleepy weirdness, rainfall and strange ambience create an epic soundscape for you to lose yourself within. The result... phenomenal.
Plug in your iPods, Underworld is back.