two snakes in a bed.

image courtesy big screen satellite.

A little-known fact about electronic music act Underworld: before the release of their groundbreaking first effort, dubnobasswithmyheadman (a seminal record in the canon of dance music), there was a demo version of this first album that was constructed, then distributed among friends and family of Karl and Rick for feedback before they went back to the studio to finish it off, once and for all, that features a number of tracks that never made it onto the final album. Courtesy the lovely boys at RTSR, I managed to acquire a copy for myself and have been spinning it ever since.

One of the tracks on this demo tape that never made it onto the final record was titled 'Big Meat Show' - available for download here.

'Big Meat Show' makes explicit the overarching themes of wild, delirious sexuality running through dubnobasswithmyheadman - a breathless tribute to the fiercely dirty hedonism of midnineties electronica. A simplistic synthesiser and guitar loop meet the thumping rhythms that Underworld are synonymous with; Hyde's Beat-esque poetics are focused here on a dream of a "waitress working in a restaurant" that immediately delve straight into wild fantasy. She asks him to be on a quiz show, but instead, takes him to a makeup room and "starts kissing him all over". It's sex, viewed through the eye of a lens for the pleasure of voyeurs everywhere. Adult filmstars, channel sixty-nine: it's intensely charged and provocative, almost pornographic. Yet Hyde's lyrics are never explicit: he manages to retain an originality of expression that distunguishes Underworld as one of the most credible acts in dance music.

I find it intriguing (but understandable) that this piece never made it onto the final album - lyrically, it's quite a strong piece, but the very basic progression of the track, musically speaking, let it down - it sounds almost half-finished, and a letdown compared to some of the more polished, stunningly adventurous and original tracks such as 'Dirty Epic' and 'Mmm Skyscraper I Love You'. It's still worth a listen, however, for fans of Underworld, casual and obsessive alike. Mmm, yeah. Turn it up: welcome, one and all.