Underworld Live in Hong Kong 2009
  
Date:     30, Sep 2009 (Wed)

Underworld Live in Hong Kong 2009

Acclaimed English electronic group Underworld

to perform live in Hong Kong

30th September 2009 at AsiaWorld-Expo

TRiKs Limited proudly presents: Underworld Live in Hong Kong 2009. The much-awaited electronic duo is finally here, UNDERWORLD Live in Hong Kong, UNDERWORLD will perform for 1 night only at AsiaWorld-Expo Hall 10 on 30th September 2009 from 9pm till late.

With the landscape of the UK dance music scene continuously changing, few artists have successfully navigated the changing landscape over the years – but one of them is certainly UNDERWORLD. The two key characters behind the band are Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, and they have been recording together under various names since 1980.15 years after they pressed up their debut Underworld single and the birth of the band as we know it today, Karl and Rick are still enjoying the ride, grinning like kids as new vistas unfold before them. It’s been a long and exhilarating trip – and it’s not over yet.

 

The band’s 1996 track “Born Slippy” became one of the most celebrated dance tracks of the generation having been featured in Academy Award winning director Danny Boyle’s movie “Trainspotting”.

 

What distinguishes UNDERWORLD is their ability to instill a deep soulfulness and empathetic humanity into even the most anthemic club banger. To that end, they fused together elements of techno, dub, trance, Krautrock, drum ’n’ bass, ambient house and even blues, complementing and contrasting not only sounds, but emotions, too, tying them together with Hyde’s frequently prescient, often opaque but always strikingly poetic lyrics.

 

If there’s a single explanation for UNDERWORLD’s longevity and fecund creativity, it’s their appetite for change and, over the past four years, they’ve been busy breaking acres of fresh artistic ground, much of it in cyberspace. In November 2005, Smith and Hyde launched their digital ‘Riverrun’ project, delivering on-line (as three separate works to date) brand new music direct to their fans.

 

In 2006, UNDERWORLD worked with fêted film score composer, producer and orchestral arranger Gabriel Yared on the soundtrack to the Anthony Minghella movie, ‘Breaking And Entering’, and in 2007 co-scored (with John Murphy) old mate Danny Boyle’s latest, ‘Sunshine’. It’s this work that fed into the pair’s latest and long-awaited, fifth studio album, ‘Oblivion With Bells’. A soulful and contemplative, yet typically uplifting record, it’s built on a more intimate scale than previous UNDERWORLD efforts and features sculptural orchestration, some ambient soundscaping and – encouraged by their work with Yared – increased live instrumental input (including marimba playing of Larry Mullen Jr of U2 on ‘Boy, Boy, Boy’). Built from a vast palette of pieces they’ve been amassing since 2003, it reflects the stylistic promiscuity that always marked UNDERWORLD out from the pack, recalling Kraftwerk, Erik Satie, Can, Angelo Badalamenti, Laurie Anderson, Ralph Vaughan Williams, The Last Poets, Brian Eno, Phillip Glass and musique concrète composers such as Pierre Boulez.

 

Smith explains, “What is the UNDERWORLD sound? “An UNDERWORLD sound’ is uplifting, anthemic, banging and very obviously dance oriented.”

 

 

Early bird tickets price HK$540 from July 9 to July 31, then after at regular price HK$590 from Aug 1 through HK Ticketing website www.hkticketing.com or hotline 31 288 288.