Underworld – Barking
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| Artist | Underworld |
| Title | Barking |
| Label | Cooking Vinyl |
| Year | 2010 |
| Design | Art direction, photographs and paintings by John Warwicker, Tomato |
| Music | Techno/Dance/Vocal |
| Desktop | Download image |
| Listen | Underworld – Scribble: |
| Notes | Underworld’s connection with left-field design agency Tomato is well-documented. That relationship has resulted in a number of challengingly abstract, monochromatic cover designs that are defiantly anti-taste and as attitude-rich as Karl Hyde’s curated stream-of-consciousness engagement with Greater London and its environs – Underworld are the chroniclers of this contemporary metropolis par-excellence.
The brilliantly titled Barking (second only in the title stakes to the unbeatably moniker’ed Second Toughest In The Infants) goes all technicolour on us while retaining the anti-design aesthetic of previous releases. With latter-day Underworld much sunnier in its disposition, the bright colours make a lot of sense. Bright may be an understatement though: there are times when you can hear the colour without looking at it. It’s as visually noisy and unruly as a shopping street on a Saturday morning. This is the deluxe version of the album and the physical packaging is great, consisting of a sturdy 10″ slipcase with a hardbound book containing the discs and a multi-page glossy attachment in magazine format. There’s a second CD of alternate mixes/sketches that are enjoyable if inevitably less impressive than the final versions, as well as a DVD of films for each of the album’s songs which are ultimately a little disappointing. At an Amazon price of £30 it’s an affordable deluxe edition which better suits the idea of the industrialised democracy of music presentation than the increasingly ubiquitous limited and highly expensive editions. Below:
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