Underground Sound of Lisbon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Underground Sound of Lisbon (sometimes shortened to USL) was a collaboration between Portuguese house music producers Rui da Silva (then known as Doctor J) and DJ Vibe (real name Tó Pereira). It was active between 1993 and 2001.

The duo started working together in 1993 by founding Kaos Records, the first Portuguese electronic music label, with promoter António Cunha. They released their first record as Underground Sound of Lisbon, "Chapter One", in 1994, although by this time they signed their production work as LHT (Lisbon Hard Team).

Still, the USL moniker became more famous after the track "So Get Up", a hard tribal anthem with spoken word apocalyptic comments by rapper Darin Pappas (better known by his stage name Ithaka, but credited here as Korvowrong), received airplay in New York clubs at the hands of DJ Danny Tenaglia, which lead to a worldwide release at the Tribal America label. They also produced a track with house diva Celeda on the vocals.

By the late 90s their tribal house sound morphed into a more progressive and dreamy vibe. After the release of their final album, Etnocity, the duo officially split, as both artists wanted to branch out into other fields and work with other producers. Silva relocated to London, where he set up Kismet Records, while Vibe continued to tour worldwide and began working with up-and-coming Portuguese producers.