Sounds from Innerspace

innerspaceboy · 08-13-2016, 05:13 PM

Ready to dive into my writing for the evening and I'm presently enjoying the first volume of the Riverrun Trilogy by Underworld, titled Lovely Broken Thing.

The EP's opening single, "JAL to Tokyo" is a magnificent and entrancing exercise in Karl Hyde's trademark stream-of-consciousness lyricism, which serves more as a rhythmic device than as a concrete narrative. Karl famously pieces together conversational fragments of passersby in cities like New York and Tokyo, lifting curious and puzzling phrases wherever he finds them. This was best realized in his Tomato Art Collective's print publication, mmm... skyscraper: A Typographical Journal of New York.

The Riverrun side projects were independent internet-only releases, granting the founding members, Rick and Karl the freedom to experiment and explore more textural and freeform sounds than the anthemic floor-stomping club tracks they were famous for in their "Born Slippy" days with Darren Emerson. The resulting extended EPs feature wonderfully artistic and engaging tracks which are all the more rewarding upon repeated listening, both actively and passively on evenings just like this one.

Lovely, indeed.

The second volume - Pizza for Eggs is a bit more ambient but it certainly maintains an abstract quality with hints of progressive trance.

And the third and final volume of Underworld's Riverrun series - the curiously-named, I'm a Big Sister, and I'm a Girl, and I'm a Princess, and This Is My Horse.
This volume is the most minimal and ambient of the series, and a wonderful conclusion to the project. But my personal favorite recording is an early draft of the EP, broadcast only once on 05-19-2006 from Lemonworld Studios by Karl, himself. The track was then-dubbed "Always Loved a Film (Silver Boots)" but bears little resemblance to either the eventually-released "ALAF" single from the Barking LP or its "Silver Boots" demo. The sprawling ambient track does, however, contain spoken word lyrics addressing the title of this final project.

I always like to close a listening session of IABSAIAGAIAPATIMH with the Lemonworld broadcast to finish off the evening.

Cheers.