Someday World
Warp Records/Inertia
You would be hard pressed to find a more recognisable name in ambient music than chief innovator, Brian Eno. For his latest project he teams up with Karl Hyde, who has been an electronic music mainstay himself as one half of the supremely successful Underworld. The two gents have known each other for close to 20 years, yet Someday World is the first full-length they have made together.
Eno had the beginnings of many tunes that he had been struggling to complete for one reason or another, and it took the pairing with Hyde to turn them into the nine songs here. The Satellites has the feel of an authentic ‘80s tune with larger than life cheesy synths and the severely dated drum roll that would be perfectly housed inside a Casio keyboard.
Ambient music may be the area that Eno most often habituates, but Someday World is full of in your face melodies with Hyde and Eno both chiming in for the vocal duties. Will Champion takes time out from Coldplay duties to assist on the tune Witness and is one of the record’s high points, while his wife Mariana adds a differing voice to much of the proceedings.
Eno and Hyde aren’t breaking new ground by any stretch of the imagination, but they have done their fair share of genre bending work in the past to be excused this time around. Instead they have put together a record that not only sounds like it was fun to make, but offers hours of pleasure for punters who won’t be able to help but sing (and dance) along.
CHRIS HAVERCROFT
