– THE QUIET RIOT –

There comes a time in all bands’ careers (at least those blessed with the gift of longevity) that I imagine it’s hard to keep coming up with song titles. Even tougher, if the full extent of your vocabulary – at least in the popular mindset – to this point has been “lager, lager, lager, lager, mega, mega white thing.”

Yes, those Born Slippy lads you’ll all remember hearing, quite literally ‘ad nauseum’ as you vomited a four pack of Strongbow into a mate’s parent’s flower bed (just me?) in the mid 90s are still at it, this time with the frankly ridiculously named Custard Speedtalk.

Alas, just like Oasis’ line-up, fashion and The S*n newspaper’s representation to women (alright, less so the latter), an awful lot has changed in the worlds of Karl Hyde and Rick Smith; the duo that now comprise techno/house pioneers Underworld.

And presumably as a way of driving home that point, in November last year, they started a year-long experimental music-and-video project called Drift, the aim of which was to release new and previously unreleased material on a weekly basis.

However, the band needn’t have been so ambitious. Listening to Custard Speedtalk the difference is so marked to their most famous hit, it’s hard to believe it’s still the same band.

Lightly-caressed piano lines and bouncy Kid A­ drums kick around a mournful lyric that – despite the nonsensical title – appears to be a really heartfelt ode to the struggles of lost love and the pain of seeing your former love move on.

The track is available on the EP, DRIFT Episode 3: HEART which is out now.

MORE FROM THIS WEEK’S MIX

LOUIS COLE: DOING THE THINGS
KEFAYA + ELAHA SOROOR: JAMA NARENJI
BONOBO: LINKED
BODY MEAT: NAIROBI FLEX

P.S. You can find all of the tracks reviewed above in the 45 Revolutions per Minute playlist below or click to access the 45 RPM Playlist on Spotify itself.

If you like what you hear (or even if you don’t), please engage in dialogue with me @45rpm_Reviews on Twitter. And, if you’d like to receive updates weekly, please subscribe to the email list to get these recommendations sent to your inbox weekly.

– SV –