Beaucoup Fish
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| Beaucoup Fish | ||
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| Studio album by Underworld | ||
| Released | September 24, 1999 | |
| Recorded | ??? | |
| Genre | Techno House Electronic |
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| Length | 74:21 | |
| Label | Junior Boy's Own | |
| Producer(s) | Underworld | |
| Professional reviews | ||
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| Underworld chronology | ||
| Second Toughest in the Infants (1996) |
Beaucoup Fish (1999) |
Everything, Everything (2000) |
Beaucoup Fish is a 1999 (see 1999 in music) album by Underworld. At the time, it was their most hyped release, and the video for "Push Upstairs" was played regularly on MTV and MTV2. This was due to the huge success of their single Born Slippy from the soundtrack of Trainspotting (film). "Push Upstairs" and the second single "Jumbo" were both hits on the dance charts and in clubs. Beaucoup Fish was well-received critically (some reviews calling it "electronica's Dark Side of the Moon") and remains Underworld's best-selling album.
The album's original working title was "Tonight Matthew, I'm Going to be Underworld" inspired by British TV programme 'Stars in their eyes' [[1]] however it was later changed on the basis that this tongue in cheek title would be incompehensible to non British buyers.
[edit] Sound
The album is mostly heavy trance beats, usually at a fast tempo, and thus very danceable. The primary instruments used are synthesizers, drum machines and stream-of-consciousness poetry sung/spoken over the beats.
[edit] Reviews
"With Beaucoup Fish, Karl Hyde, Rick Smith and Darren Emerson do what they probably would have done had none of the ups and downs ever happened -- create darkly physical grooves that seduce psyche, body and soul without resorting to instant hooks or easily understood concepts. There is no ready-made "Born Slippy," the single that graced a thousand quickie electronica compilations in the wake of Trainspotting. Nor do Underworld undertake a radical stylistic switcheroo to compete with this moment's big-beat boys. Their specialty is an undulating trance throb that shimmers with shades of rock, contemporary symphonics, dub, disco, house, spoken word, whatever. The result still sounds like Underworld, and the fiftieth play sounds better than the fifth.
The epic opener, "Cups," evokes Herbie Hancock's Seventies vocoder jazz, with sweetly distorted vocals sprinkled across shifting slabs of slinky rhythm, ever-changing repetition and much-understated drama. Archetypal for Underworld but unlike typical club fare, the track doesn't end the same way it starts -- there's a musical narrative here, even if it's incomprehensible to all but your feet. The first single, "Push Upstairs," layers an angular piano riff, a stuttering bass boom, Hyde's drawling rant and cinematic suspense. Later, "Push Downstairs" floats similar poetry over a languid ambient pool. If there's a future dance classic here, it's "King of Snake," which subverts the famous spiraling synth flow of Donna Summer's epochal "I Feel Love" with clattering snares and splattering echo frenzy. Will it pull Underworld over-ground? The answer could be in the next big soundtrack."
BARRY WALTERS of Rolling Stone magazine
[edit] Track listing
All songs by Darren Emerson, Karl Hyde, and Rick Smith unless noted.
- "Cups" – 11:45
- "Push Upstairs" – 4:34
- "Jumbo" – 6:57
- "Shudder / King of Snake" (Underworld/Bellotte/Moroder/Summer) – 9:30
- "Winjer" – 4:30
- "Skym" – 4:07
- "Bruce Lee" – 4:43
- "Kittens" – 7:30
- "Push Downstairs" – 6:03
- "Something Like a Mama" – 6:37
- "Moaner" – 7:38
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