Today, Underworld let loose their new album, Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future, via Caroline International. Spotify users can stream the LP in full below. It’s also available over at Apple Music.
Barbara Barbara marks the electronic music icons’ first album since 2010’s Barking. It spans seven new tracks, including lead single “I Exhale”.
Karl Hyde discussed the album in an interview with Consequence of Sound, saying:
“I don’t think Underworld has ever made a record like this. This is a record that’s split into two sections, with a divider in the middle, ‘Santiago Cuatro’. They are all quintessentially Underworld. For me, what happens in those first two tracks, ‘I Exhale’ and “If Rah”, is I see those visually. I always see those tracks as someone laying down the Eiffel Tower on its side and cutting it up into these shards of rhythmic steel. And when you get to this moment of ‘Santiago Cuatro’, you can step back, take a moment, then come through this doorway and travel around on this vast, sunlit plane. We finally had the courage to be so focused in our sound. In the past, we tended to split tracks up into dark, light, smooth, hard. When Rick played it to me on the tour bus, I held my breath because it’s so not what people would expect an Underworld record to be.”
In her review of the album, Nina Corcoran writes: “On their seventh studio album, Underworld aren’t looking to reinvent themselves or change the game. They’re coming at dance with the revitalized break an iconic band such as themselves needs, the type of distance from the mixing board that jogs their memory, reminding them where the inspiration for their beats came — and still comes — from.”
Purchase a copy of the album here.
Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future Tracklist:
01. I Exhale
02. If Rah
03. Low Burn
04. Santiago Cuatro
05. Motorhome
06. Ova Nova
07. Nylon Strung
