Underworld have delayed the release of their promised new material, extending the gap since their last new recordings to nearly two years.
Late last year, the band said a new single would be ready this month, the first new track to be commercially released since the July 1996 remix of ‘Born Slippy’. Now their whole release schedule has been delayed because the band are still in the studio completing the tracks. Underworld are now promising new releases and live dates for this summer, including an appearance on the NME Stage at V98 on August 22 and 23.
A spokesman for the band told NME: “I’ve heard about 15 or 16 tracks but nothing’s finished yet. It’s just the way they work. They’ll work quite slowly, then suddenly they will get inspiriation and everything will start to fall into place track by track and they suddenly find the album’s finished. In fact, I’d expect only about six of the tracks I’ve heard will end up on the album anyway.”
The band have been working on their new album for more than a year, the follow up to their last album ‘Second Toughest In The Infants’ which came out in March 1996. “There will definitely be something released in June and there will definitely be gigs. We just decided it was easier to to give them the time to do what they wanted than hassle them to release something earlier,” Underworld’s spokesman explains.
However, he adds the new album will be worth the wait and said the sound so far was “heavier and more experimental” than the band’s more recent releases. “One track sounds like Motorhead playing Underworld singing about Bruce Lee,” he explained.
Meanwhile, some previously-released but rare Underworld tracks are to feature on a forthcoming Junior Boys Own compilation album due in April. The as-yet-untitled collection will feature Underworld’s remix of Simply Red’s ‘Thrill Me’, their remix of Bjork’s ‘Human Bahviour’, ‘Moaner’, which was only ever released on the soundtrack to last year’s Batman And Robin film in the UK and ‘Big Mouth’ a track by Underworld alter ego Lemon Interrupt.