Karl Hyde

Londoner Karl Hyde earned his primary recognition as the vocalist for the electronic act Underworld, although he had earlier belonged to the pre-Underworld band Freur and has continued to issue work under his own name. The lineage of Underworld reaches to the start of the 1980s, when Hyde and Rick Smith first assembled the pop-reggae outfit Screen Gemz and subsequently the new wave band Freur, which placed the minor hit “Doot Doot” in 1983. An initial incarnation of Underworld appeared in 1987, yet the decisive breakthrough occurred in 1991 when DJ Darren Emerson entered the group at the same moment Hyde shifted his lyric writing toward a more surreal, cut-up method. Tracks including “Born Slippy NUXX” and “Jumbo” registered as hits and later as dance music classics, allowing the act to absorb Emerson’s departure in 2002 and maintain a run of successful albums while touring effectively as a duo. Hyde began his solo path in 2013 with the album Edgeland, an effort more experimental than Underworld’s customary releases, then the next year worked alongside Brian Eno to reshape a set of the producer’s unfinished intros into pop songs, yielding the May 2014 release Someday World.