Drift (Underworld project)

''Drift'' is the 2018–2019 music-and-video experiment by the British electronic music group Underworld, with consecutive tracks and music videos released online on a weekly basis, between November 2018 and October 2019. Individual new tracks were made available through the band's official website as time-limited free downloads, along with accompanying videos published on YouTube — followed by collective digital EPs.

From 1 November 2018, throughout the first year of ''Drift'', 38 new tracks were released within five ''Episodes'', an additional soundtrack album ''Manchester Street Poem'', as well as 20 archival tracks and mixes. It is the band's second project distributed digitally, after the 2005–2006 series '' Riverrun''.

On 1 November 2019, an album ''Drift Series 1'', compiling all EPs and additional 11 new tracks, was released as a 7-CD, 1 Blu-ray box set, as well as digitally, along with a single-disc ''Drift Series 1 Sampler Edition''. In September 2020, ''Drift Series 1'' was re-released, including an additional eighth CD with a live performance.

Background

Karl Hyde and Rick Smith's aim was to release new and previously unreleased music, film, and written stories throughout a full year, on a weekly basis, every Thursday, "and see where the journey took them." They admitted that the episodic idea for the project "grew out of boredom," jokingly adding later in the project it was "a foolhardy promise made in public." The duo wanted to disrupt the single-album-tour cycle, which for them repeats roughly every three years, by letting themselves to create instinctively and responsively, explaining "you want every day to be a challenge, particularly when it comes to making music." "Whether it's good or bad, we'll record with more honesty in this one year than we have in the previous fifteen... I mean, come on! We’ve got to try that."

''Drift'' has its roots in earlier online Underworld projects, including the archive music released freely through underworldlive.com starting in 2000, the ''Riverrun'' project in 2005, and the band's live webcasts from 2004 to 2008. In April 2018, Underworld released by surprise their first new track since 2016's '' Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future,'' "Brilliant Yes That Would Be", and in June 2018 an unfinished version of "Appleshine", each with a video directed by Underworld's art director Simon Taylor, of the band's own design-and-film collective Tomato. These releases foreshadowed the project and were later included in ''Drift'' releases. The first trailer for the project's ''Episode 1'' was published on 25 October 2018.

The duo initiated ''Drift'' having been inspired by a conversation with the band's lighting designer Haydn Cruickshank, who has been a drift racer. The project's name also referenced the movie series '' The Fast And The Furious'', particularly one of its sequels, '' Tokyo Drift.'' ''Drift's'' first video to "Another Silent Way" featured racing at the Rockingham Motor Speedway. The majority of ''Drift'' music videos was directed by Taylor, shot "from Shibuya Crossing to the Moroccan desert to rural Essex." At times, the videos were said to be delivered twenty four hours before they went live. Other contributions to the project included works of playwrights, DJs, painters, and poets.

Compositions of the first year of ''Drift'' feature collaborations with the Australian experimental jazz band The Necks, London producer Ø haseaka Ashley Burchett, actor Matthew Trevannion, members of the rock band Black Country, New Road (including Georgia Ellery, Lewis Evans, and Karl Hyde's daughter Tyler Hyde), as well as Ichirou Agata of the Japanese noise rock band Melt-Banana.

Reflecting on the project, the band described the scale of ''Drift'' as "the most inspiring process that hey'veever engaged in" yet relentless — "There's no expansion space... you can't get ill. You can't go on holiday. You don't have weekends" — and regretted how the rapid schedule made collaborating with other artists difficult, desiring to build more time into a second series.

Release format

New songs and video were released on YouTube each Thursday, for a total of five or six weeks in a row. The Thursday after the final song of each episode, the full episode would be released on streaming services and digital retail as an EP. Certain songs were released as digital singles ahead of their episodes.

Often, songs were altered between their video and final release - notably, the video release of "Mile Bush Pride" includes an outro that was later cut, the final version of "Molehill" was given an extended coda, and "Brilliant Yes That Would Be" was first cut into a 30 second intro to ''Episode 1'', then extended to over 10 minutes on the box set release. The songs of ''Episode 1'' were re-ordered and mixed to play continuously, later episodes did not follow this practice and ''Episode 1'' was restored to its original order for the box set.

Between each ''Episode'', Underworld published unreleased material, new remixes, live rehearsal recordings, DJ mixes, and other items from the band's archives (See: Archival tracks and mixes). These releases were often curated by Junior Boy's Own founder Steven Hall, and were compiled in a digital download for the ''Drift Series 1'' box set.

The ''Guardian'' "socialist banger"

On 21 May 2019, Underworld released a new version of the track "Soniamode", originally featured on February's ''Episode 2 — Atom''. Now dubbed "Soniamode (Aditya Game Version)," it featured lyrics written by ''The Guardian'' columnist and economics commentator Aditya Chakrabortty. The band's publicist knew Chakrabortty's 2018 column series ''The Alternatives'', "about how to make the economy work for everyone," asked him to email a list of inspirational people, ideas, and processes, for the band, and the list ended up as a chorus for the track.

''Drift Series 2''

Underworld announced on 21 May 2019 they would conclude ''Drift'' after its 52-week run with the compilation album ''Drift Songs'', for release on single-CD, double vinyl, and a 6-CD, 1-Blu-ray box set. But with the release of the last song of ''Episode 5'', on 12 September 2019, Underworld announced the ''Drift'' project would continue, and re-titled the upcoming album ''Drift Series 1''. In September 2020, when asked about the status of the project, Smith responded "Series 2? We’re already there, though, we’re just trying to figure out how to roll it out," and elaborated "''Drift'' has always been happening, and Series 2 is merely a chosen starting point: a time and place."

After ''Drift Series 1'', Underworld released a handful of new versions of classic tracks, including a remix of " Dark & Long" subtitled "Drift 2 Dark Train." Beyond this, there has been no mention of a second series. In 2023 and 2024, the band released several new songs, and in September 2024 announced '' Strawberry Hotel'', a traditional studio album.

''Drift Series 1''

''Drift Series 1'' is the tenth studio album by the British electronic group Underworld, released on 1 November 2019. It is the conclusion of the first year of the band's year-long music-and-video experiment ''Drift'', and the band's first full-length release since 2016's album ''Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future''.

''Drift Series 1'' was released exactly one year after the launch of the series, as a box set featuring 7 CDs, a Blu-ray, and an 80-page book documenting the creative process around ''Drift''. A single-disc ''Drift Series 1 Sampler Edition'' was also released simultaneously, the ''Sampler Edition'' is a continuous mix of select songs from the series, many edited into shorter versions.

The full edition of ''Drift Series 1'' features the expanded and reproduced tracks, videos and written text released throughout the series, and material the duo worked on but wasn't releasing before and during the ''Drift'' project. Each episode is presented across 7 separate CDs with some slight changes — ''Episode 1'' was restored to its original release order, all three collaborations with The Necks were moved to their own CD, and additional unreleased songs were added to the end of every episode. The seventh CD includes the ''Sampler Edition'' of the album.

With the September 2020 re-release of ''Drift Series 1'', an eighth CD was introduced with the live-set entitled ''RicksDubbedOutDriftExperience'', recorded at Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam on 23 November 2019.

Critical reception

''Drift Series 1'' received critical acclaim from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 86, based on 7 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". It is the band's most acclaimed studio album on the site to date. ''Mixmag'' applauded the album "absolutely stunning": " hilecertainly raw and reminiscent of a free-flowing jam session at times, what's particularly commendable is how beautifully produced each track is, with a discernible intention toward the arrangement of layers to establish powerful, thematic settings."

Accolades

Charts

''Manchester Street Poem'' participation

In July 2017, Underworld recorded music for the live installation ''Manchester Street Poem'' at the Manchester International Festival. The project told stories of people in Manchester who find themselves homeless. On 13 June 2019, the complete score to the project was made available to download, with proceeds going toward the ongoing ''Manchester Street Poem'' project, dedicated to people who experienced homelessness. The album was promoted by the single "Doris," which was released on ''Drift Episode 4'' on the same day as the full score.

Track listing

The following is a chronological list of tracks released subsequently as digital ''Drift'' EPs. Track lengths adapted from music streaming platforms.

''Episodes''

''Episode 1 — Dust''

''Episode 2 — Atom''

''Episode 3 — Heart''

''Episode 4 — Space''

''Episode 5 — Game''

''Drift Series 1'' collective release

Details of the physical and digital release, which collects tracks from the ''Drift Episodes''.

''Manchester Street Poem Installation Score''

''Series 1s archival tracks and mixes

The following is a chronological list of previously unreleased tracks, remixes, continuous mixes, and live rehearsal recordings, published on Thursdays, between ''Series 1'' ''Episodes''. The tracks were released on various platforms, and released as a collection in lossless WAV, available by a download code included in the ''Drift'' box set.

''Border Country (The Remixes)'' EP

''RicksDubbedOutDriftExperience (Live in Amsterdam)''

References

External links

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{{Underworld

Underworld (band) albums