Someone once told me that, if humans did not have ten fingers, we would not use a base ten number system. Not all cultures use this system. The Oksapmin of Papua New Guinea, for example, have a 27-body part counting system, which begins with the thumb on one hand and ends on the little finger of the opposite hand. Interestingly, the emergence of a money economy around 1978 gave rise to new uses of this system to handle arithmetic problems. Different systems are used by the Yoruba in West Africa (base-20 with subtraction), the Nimbia in Nigeria (base-12) and the Huli people of Papua New Guinea (base-15).

One can imagine that, because of these different systems, different numbers vary in significance. For the ten-fingered and decimally inclined arithmeticians out there, today is a special milestone for Underworld’s Dubnobasswithmyheadman, for it turns 30.

I am neither the best nor first person to chronicle the album’s origins. But a brief recount of the tricenarian’s roots won’t hurt.

Underworld had achieved small-scale success as a new wave outfit, releasing two albums before playing as a supporting act for Eurythmics in 1989. They then dispersed. Karl Hyde had a sojourn at Prince’s Paisley Park Studios and toured with Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein. He returned to the UK in 1990. There, he reunited with former bandmate Rick Smith and, most importantly for the ushering in of Underworld ‘Mk II’, Darren Emerson. Emerson was an emerging figure in Romford’s electronic and club scene, the gateway into a culture that Hyde and Smith were strangers to. But what he boasted in his knowledge of acid house and techno, he lacked in skill operating recording studio equipment. That’s no shot at Emerson. At the time of Dubnobass’ release, he was just shy of 23 years’ old. And it was no problem for Smith and Hyde, who welcomed him in a symbiotic embrace.

What strikes me so much about Dubnobasswithmyheadman is its modernist features. It evokes the cityscape: the groans of a rattling night train, soulless glass towers, and the unsettling plunge into dark alleyways. The album’s setting – one of “porn dogs” and “phone sex” – is unmistakably squalid and as confounding as Hyde’s Joycean passages (“Pornfest, pork fat, Jesus Christ, night light/Elvis, fresh meat and a little whipped cream”). Not that this is unintentional. Hyde, who refrains from clarifying whether ‘Cowgirl’ repeats “an eraser of love” or “a razor of love”, welcomes the album’s varying interpretations.  

Fragmented and vacuous as it sounds, the record is entrancing and teeming with emotion. Most songs are long by today’s standards – over seven minutes – and draw the listener in with their subtly evolving measures. Stomping drum kicks copulate with an array of sounds – including the rolling synth chords on ‘Surfboy’, sequencer swings on ‘Spoonman’, and the guitar outbursts and shimmering house piano of ‘Dirty Epic’ – that make the record unpigeonholeable. Structurally, these dancefloor-ready tracks are bordered by downtempo cuts that further the album’s dimensionality. On ‘Tongue’, gentle chords and vocals ring out in an ambient, atmospheric expanse. Following the propulsive ‘Cowgirl’ comes ‘River of Bass’, a reggae-adjacent balm that swaps out the former’s frenetic acid lines for wispy guitar licks and soft percussive elements. Tidy. It is this dynamic push-and-pull that keeps the record sustainable over its hour-long runtime and loved by a range of audiences. For long before electronic music permeated the overground mainstream, Underworld stood as an example of a group that appealed to both worlds.

Life in the city is a collection of repeated activities, with each iteration differing only slightly. It can be lonely, often. And the relentless push towards so-called progress is more than enough to numb the spirit. Human connection, however, can rescue us from the weight of urban life. It was Underworld’s ability on Dubnobasswithmyheadman to connect our shared anxieties, experiences and desires that showed the world how profound electronic music could be. 30 years on from the album’s release, it scarcely sounds dated. Many producers have come since then. Few have replicated Underworld’s success. 30 years from now, I suspect that Dubnobass will continue to be held in reverence – and so it should be.

90

Joe Negrine

24 January 2024