UNKLE - Psyence Fiction [1998]

Genre: Trip Hop, Downtempo, Hip Hop, Electronica, Alternative Rock

MySpace: unkle

My opinion & thought: This is my favourie UNKLE's album yet it's their debut and I love it all these years. With collaborations with Thom York, Richard Ashcroft, Jason Newsted, Badly Drawn Boy, Futura (album art) and many more, this is a huge success release of its kind. Trust me, this album is awesome!

Stands out track(s): Rabbit In Your Headlights, Lonely Soul, Guns Blazing (Drums Of Death Part 1), Bloodstain

Unkle (also written as UNKLE and U.N.K.L.E.) is a British musical outfit founded in 1994 by school friends James Lavelle and Tim Goldsworthy. Originally categorized as trip-hop, the group once included producer DJ Shadow and has employed a variety of guest artists and producers.

Lavelle drafted in DJ Shadow to work on the debut album, and essentially discarded all previously recorded material. Lavelle and Shadow released Psyence Fiction in 1998 to critical acclaim. The album included collaborations with an all-star lineup including Thom Yorke (Radiohead), Mike D (Beastie Boys), Kool G. Rap, Jason Newsted (Metallica), Badly Drawn Boy and Richard Ashcroft (The Verve).

Shadow left the group after touring Psyence Fiction and was replaced by turntablist group the Scratch Perverts, who deconstructed the album and performed it live on turntables in 1999. Also in 1999, Forme producer Richard File remixed the track "Unreal", adding vocals by Ian Brown, and the resulting track was released as the single "Be There".

Psyence Fiction is the debut album by the group Unkle, released in 1998 for Mo'Wax. "Unreal" is an instrumental version of the song "Be There" (featuring Ian Brown), which was released a year later as a single. On some early presses of the album, instrumental versions of "Guns Blazing" and "The Knock" were added as tracks 13 & 14. On some re-releases of this album, "Be There" was added as track 13. Some versions (mainly the Japanese release, but also the US promotional copy) contain thehidden track "Intro (optional)" as "track zero", which is actually the pre-gap (index 0) of track 1. This can be accessed by "rewinding" the first track on some CD players. "Lonely Soul" was featured in an Assassin's Creed trailer for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. Psyence Fiction debuted at #15 in Australia. Made #1 on KTUH's charts on the week of October 12, 1998.

Tracklisting:

1. "Guns Blazing (Drums of Death, Pt. 1)" – featuring Kool G Rap – 5:01
2. "Unkle (Main Title Theme)" – 3:24
3. "Bloodstain" – featuring Alice Temple – 5:57
4. "Unreal" – 5:10
5. "Lonely Soul" – featuring Richard Ashcroft – 8:56
6. "Getting Ahead in the Lucrative Field of Artist Management" – 0:54
7. "Nursery Rhyme/Breather" – featuring Badly Drawn Boy – 4:45
8. "Celestial Annihilation" – 4:45
9. "The Knock (Drums of Death, Pt. 2)" – featuring Jason Newsted and Mike D – 3:57
10. "Chaos" – featuring Mark Hollis on piano and Atlantique Khan on vocals – 4:42
11. "Rabbit in Your Headlights" – featuring Thom Yorke – 6:10
12. "Outro (Mandatory)" – 1:06

Personnel:

1. DJ Shadow - production
2. James Lavelle - vocals, engineering
3. Sie Medway-Smith, Jim Abbiss - engineering
4. Kool G Rap, Alice Temple, Richard Ashcroft, Damon Gough, Mike D, Atlantique Khan, Thom Yorke - vocals
5. Mark Hollis - piano
6. Jason Newsted - bass, thermin