Bleep

Warp unveiled a very special collaboration between Brian Eno and Karl Hyde of Underworld in 2014: their first full length album together. Pulled from scattered beginnings, Someday World is inspired in part by the crossing paths of asymmetrical architectures, and the artists who meet in the middle of them.

Eno and Hyde have floated around each other before, remixing tracks for Underworld and Hyde's solo album Edgeland, and joining for Eno's Pure Scenius concert series. From this central point of collaboration, they branch out into influences of Afrobeat, jazz, synthpop, and more, while stitching together a dazzling array of contributors such as only two music vanguards possibly could: production from a fledgling Fred again.., drummers Will Champion of Coldplay and Chris Vatalaro of Anohni And The Johnsons, and Roxy Music coconspirator Andy Mackay.

What results from this convergence of eclectic streams is two artists with a toybox of instruments at their disposal, and a wide world of possibilities. Anthemic brass sections rub against more solemn guitar riffs and bassy vocals on ‘The Satellites’, glued together by a driving drum machine rhythm that leads into the extended drum workout of ‘Daddy's Car’. With funk bass fills, it morphs into a chugging breakbeat, underlining blue-skied staccato piano melodies that frame free-spirited choruses. Each track from then on widens the record's scope: ‘Witness’ lists the intersections of nature and technology over pulsing guitar-led distortion, ‘Mother Of A Dog’ pairs bluesy desert harmonica with molten bass, and the tension filled synth tapestry of ‘When I Built This World’ is cut by right-angled violin and a krautrock-esque kaleidoscopic breakdown.

Ten years on from Brian Eno and Karl Hyde's debut collaboration, Someday World has shown itself to be an elite pop record of magnificent, multifaceted proportions.