Karl Hyde: from Underworld to no-man's-land

The dance pioneers of Underworld have given one another some space: while Rick Smith is working on the soundtrack to the new Danny Boyle film, Karl Hyde is serving up an intimate ode to the hidden periphery of the big city. “I yearn for the small-scale.”

“Mmm…skyscraper I love you,” we heard twenty years ago on one of the first singles by Underworld. “New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, you name it: I’ve spent a large part of my life in city centres,” Karl Hyde says, reflecting on two decades of metropolitan craziness. “That natural biotope started manifesting itself in my lyrics…until I had nothing more to say about it and wanted to write about the no-man’s-land at the edges of those same cities, which nobody talks about.”

Enter Edgeland, on which Hyde consciously left his comfort zone to look for places located in the city’s shadow, both physically and mentally. “I could only ascertain that there is a totally different mentality, one that is closer to the mentality in the countryside than in the city. The people who live there refuse to be a part of the city, which results in a very particular dynamic. What at first I thought would just be junk, turned out to conceal a lot of poetry. Everybody was also sincerely happy about the interest I showed.”
Hyde’s principal conclusion is that there are no such things as “normal people”: “I mostly encountered extraordinary people, and enormous positivity, which is perhaps surprising. The media constantly barrages us with misery, but I only met people who are getting on with their lives. I met people who run nice cafés or successful taxi companies. And here the streets are full of the kind of art you would normally only see in galleries in city centres.”

Eno
Paradoxically, Hyde used to cross this no-man’s-land almost daily, even during Underworld’s heyday, and does still when commuting from his home in Essex – north-east of London – to guitarist-producer Leo Abrahams’s studio in Homerton, where the album was made. “Underworld has always been large-scale – to us, a 1,500 capacity hall was tiny, but an arena was run of the mill. Eventually I really started needing intimacy and the small-scale. I’d made that clear to Rick several times, just like he needed to collaborate with other vocalists and guitarists: that would only make us stronger. It’s the chemistry between us that makes Underworld special, not my exceptional qualities as a singer or guitarist.” [Laughs]

The catalyst for this solo debut was Pure Scenius, the improvisation ensemble of which not only Abrahams and Hyde, but also Brian Eno and producer John Hopkins are members. “Eno encouraged me to really sing and to use more words – in dance they often get in the way. That was very motivating to a constant doubter like me.” Suddenly, he discovered a new world: “I realised that I could also make music for a seated audience. Underworld did occasionally allow space for introspection, as a counterbalance to the energetic beats, but as a singer I always had to compete with machines. I could now freely let myself be inspired by the fragility of Robert Wyatt – a big influence for the way I sing now — and by Morrissey, who can make the most banal themes sound like poetry. It was a gigantic learning process, during which I discovered that first takes often work the best.” That rather unrefined, but honest and personal ambient-like sound is also the best match for the no-man’s-land Hyde depicts here.

Karl Hyde • 20/4, 20.00 (18.00: DVD screening of “The Outer Edges” by Karl Hyde & Kieran Evans at Huis 23), €25/28, Ancienne Belgique, boulevard Anspachlaan 110, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-548.24.24, www.abconcerts.be