Underworld Live Electronica DJ-Sets Compilation (2000 - 2026)

Artists Profile

Current Location :: Romford, Essex, UK

Real Names :: Karl Hyde & Rick Smith — with Darren Emerson (1991-2000)

Music Genres :: Electronica, Progressive House, Techno

Karl Hyde and Rick Smith met at art college in Cardiff in the late seventies and have been working together ever since — first as the synth-pop group Freur, then as a rock-leaning first version of Underworld, and finally, from 1991, as the trio that mattered: Hyde, Smith and a teenage DJ from Romford called Darren Emerson.

That line-up produced dubnobasswithmyheadman (1994) and Second Toughest in the Infants (1996), two records that are still routinely named among the best electronic albums ever made. What set them apart was the humanity in the machine music: Hyde's fractured, overheard, deeply strange lyrics riding on top of Smith's long, patient builds. "Born Slippy .NUXX" — a B-side — landed in Trainspotting in 1996 and stopped belonging to them entirely.

Emerson left after Beaucoup Fish (1999) and the live album Everything, Everything (2000). Hyde and Smith carried on as a duo with A Hundred Days Off (2002), Oblivion With Bells (2007), Barking (2010) and Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future (2016), alongside film work with Danny Boyle. Smith was music director for the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony.

Drift Series 1 in 2019 was a year of weekly releases, an experiment almost nobody else would attempt at that stage of a career, and Strawberry Hotel followed in 2024. On stage they remain one of the very few electronic acts that genuinely improvise — the same track can run eight minutes one night and twenty the next, which is exactly why the live recordings are worth collecting.

This collection picks the story up in 2000 and runs to 2026: Creamfields and Glastonbury, Cocoon with Sven Väth, Coachella, Movement, the Royal Albert Hall and Sydney Opera House, the radio sessions, and the 2025 Boiler Room. The nineties material is in the separate Classic Underworld package.