I'm somewhere between 'farfromthesun' and Ross...
I agree with farfromthesun in a large part - I can't really compare FSOL/Ae with Orbital/Underworld - I mean I can, but not in a good way...
In other news - Karl Hyde & Brian Eno released a new album... a promo really, the album comes out in a week or something... It looks exciting, but I haven't heard it yet...
Well yeah, Orbital and Underworld are always somewhat rooted in dance music, Ae much less so and FSOL barely at all for a long time. Truth is, they're different sorts of music really, labeling them simply 'electronic' probably didn't help in the first place... But really, Underworld are probably one of the most idiosyncratic groups I can think of, everything from the art, to the song titles, to a lot of the sounds they use, are entirely them and nobody else comes close.
The Hyde / Eno album is out Monday (although Norman Records stuck mine in the post today, apparently). It's very poppy, falls more in line with Eno's 80s production on Talking Heads and the like, with lots of African-style percussive rhythms, brass and so on. I was honestly expecting something like Eno's mix of Slummin' it for the Weekend off of Edgeland, but the two promo tracks so far are really big and melodic so it suits me down to the ground. It's definitely going to be a controversial opinion-splitter though!
Eno / Hyde came in the post today. Very much a mix of Karl's solo album, Eno's early pop records and hints of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. A very strange pop record. Not at all Underworldy though.
In the artwork there are photos of the studio, and on one white board is written "I think of the '80s as a time I chose to forget" - which might tie in very nicely with the Underneath the Radar video up there
