Thursday, 16 May 2024

Underworld - Drift Series 1 (2019)


In November 2018 Underworld decided to put out a new tune every week for a year. The collection of this years worth of tunes was known as "Drift Series 1".

The album came in all sorts of shapes and sizes it's difficult to know exactly which one to listen to. What I went with was a 40 track album on their official YouTube channel. 

A 40 track album is a long album even if it's a punk album full of 2 minute tracks. Underworld tend to be at the other end of the scale though, their "Second Toughest in the Infants" album for example is over 70 minutes long but only contains 8 tracks.

You need several hours to spare to listen to this all in one sitting, something I never had. I had around 90 minutes to spare when I first started listening which took me up to track 10. On that basis I thought 3 more 90 minute sessions would cover the album, but it didn't quite work out like that. 2 of the last 3 tracks are over 30 minutes long and in the case of the final track someone points out in the comments that this track alone is longer than "With The Beatles".

Whether they really did make a new tune from scratch every week I don't know. Thinking back to my own songwriting experience I probably did write a new song every week but a lot of them would end up on the scrapheap. I get the impression that's the case for a lot of songwriters.

Yet with this album I don't recall any tune that sounds like it belongs on the scrapheap which is something I thought was inevitable. Maybe they get it right everytime, but I suspect they had something in reserve for when whatever it is they're writing that week isn't working out.

I would call the album solid. The problem is it was so long since I started listening to the album that I can't really remember how it starts.

 

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