BABBLE Rousers; Far removed from the faceless hedonism of most dance

THE prospect of chatting to Karl Hyde - techno seer-prophet from dance music veterans Underworld - is initially a daunting one. In a genre that often rejects lyrics in favour of adding more banging beats, Hyde is a verbal conflagration; his babbling, stream-of- consciousness style more akin to urban slam poetry than the repeated mantras of most hands-in-the-air Ibiza anthems.

For the last 10 years, the 40-year-old has sprayed out a tsunami of words, shading Underworld's moody techno with a perceived weight and meaning that remains tantalisingly beyond actual comprehension. For example, what exactly does Hyde mean when he yelps "Like a Tom and Jerry thing, yeah/Drink, drink, drink and you go ping" on the thumping King Of Snake?

Even the famous "lager, lager, lager, lager" incantation on the Trainspotting soundtrack's signature tune Born Slippy is less a beery chant than something angular, alien and affecting.

But when we meet at Underworld's shared studio complex in London, it turns out he's more gentle Doctor Jekyll than maniacal Mr Hyde.

He's just back from 100 days of global promotion for Underworld's latest album A Hundred Days Off, a tour that took in Japan, America and most of Europe. If you think it's tricky to explain the nuances of his dense lyrics in English, imagine what it must be like in a foreign language.

"People are always interested," he chuckles, "but I'm not sure how well the lyrics translate around the world. And this time round the singer came last.

"The music, the groove came first and the singer responds to the groove rather than the music being put around the singer. The voice and the text is a part of the sound but not the thing that is automatically up front."

So what do the words actually mean? "It can appear to be just noises, just sounds, disparate words but they're not. They're my particular way of writing my autobiography, the fragments of my day which make up an impression of my state of mind in a particular place.

"I write about everything I see and hear and overhear. I go to the music with several notebooks in my hand and look through them and see what's on the page that corresponds to how I feel about the music."

A Hundred Days Off is a significant record for Underworld - their first studio album since DJ Darren Emerson left in 2000. He may not have been a founder member - Hyde and guitarist/programmer Rick Smith have been recording together since 1980 - but Emerson's arrival in 1990 seemed to catalyse the band's success.

Their seminal 1994 album Dubnobasswithmyheadman remains a towering landmark in the techno genre, and they've remained strong since. Yet presumably Emerson's departure had some impact on the band?

"Well, the two people who'd done most of the work on the records were still together so it wasn't that much different," counters Hyde. "But I was present a lot more, which I guess made some difference.

"We've got two studios in the same building now and we sometimes start separately, sometimes jam together, sometimes jam on each other's ideas. Rick always finishes things off, actually producing the record. But there's no set way of working." He chuckles. "It's a mystery to us how it works sometimes."

Although the record ended up being called A Hundred Days Off, Hyde hasn't had a proper holiday in years. After 1999's Beaucoup Fish there was the live album and DVD Everything, Everything to pull together, and he's continuously involved with Tomato - the hip art and graphic design collective he co-founded with Smith. He's evangelical about creativity being an integral part of everyday life rather than a closed-off, rarefied activity.

"We've fed the Underworld-live.com website with MP3s, films and writing, and those films have become the inspiration for projections at our live shows. Filming, photography, writing is very much a part of our daily life.

"You keep making work whether you can sell it or not, and then opportunities come along where you're able to put that work out. It's more rewarding for your state of mind if you've got other things going on."

Underworld live is the stuff of legend, and although the Everything, Everything DVD captured some of the freewheeling, hedonistic essence of their thumping gigs - picking up a heap of awards in the process - there's really nothing like exper-iencing it in the flesh.

"We don't use tapes, there's no setlist," says Hyde. "Between us and the crowd, we make it up as we go along, using motifs from the tunes people recognise. Take it to pieces and then explore them. And what happens, happens."

So does he believe that it's meant to be? That it's cosmic kismet?

"Something like that." He laughs. "Kismet the frog."

Underworld play the Barrowland, Glasgow, on November 13 and 14 www.underworld-jbo.com www.unerworldlive.com www.tomato.co.uk

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