Karl Hyde and
Rick Smith's aim was to release new and previously unreleased music, film, and
written stories throughout a full year, on a weekly basis, every Thursday, "and see where the journey took them." They admitted that the
episodic idea for the project "grew out of boredom," jokingly adding later in the project it was "a foolhardy promise made in public." the
Riverrun project in 2005, and the band's live webcasts from 2004 to 2008. In April 2018, Underworld released by surprise their first new track since 2016's
Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future, "Brilliant Yes That Would Be", and in June 2018 an unfinished version of "Appleshine", each with a video directed by Underworld's
art director Simon Taylor, of the band's own
design-and-film collective Tomato. These releases foreshadowed the project and were later included in
Drift releases. The first trailer for the project's
Episode 1 was published on 25 October 2018. The duo initiated
Drift having been inspired by a conversation with the band's
lighting designer Haydn Cruickshank, who has been a
drift racer. The project's name also referenced the movie series
The Fast And The Furious, particularly one of its sequels,
Tokyo Drift. ''Drift's
first video to "Another Silent Way" featured racing at the Rockingham Motor Speedway. The majority of Drift''
music videos was directed by Taylor, shot "from
Shibuya Crossing to the
Moroccan desert to rural
Essex." actor Matthew Trevannion, members of the rock band
Black Country, New Road (including Georgia Ellery, Lewis Evans, and Karl Hyde's daughter Tyler Hyde Reflecting on the project, the band described the scale of
Drift as "the most inspiring process that [they've] ever engaged in" yet relentless — "There's no expansion space... you can't get ill. You can't go on holiday. You don't have weekends" — and regretted how the rapid schedule made collaborating with other artists difficult, desiring to build more time into a second series.
Release format New songs and video were released on YouTube each Thursday, for a total of five or six weeks in a row. The Thursday after the final song of each episode, the full episode would be released on streaming services and digital retail as an EP. Certain songs were released as digital singles ahead of their episodes. Often, songs were altered between their video and final release - notably, the video release of "Mile Bush Pride" includes an outro that was later cut, the final version of "Molehill" was given an extended coda, and "Brilliant Yes That Would Be" was first cut into a 30 second intro to
Episode 1, then extended to over 10 minutes on the box set release. The songs of
Episode 1 were re-ordered and mixed to play continuously, later episodes did not follow this practice and
Episode 1 was restored to its original order for the box set. Between each
Episode, Underworld published unreleased material, new remixes,
live rehearsal recordings,
DJ mixes, and other items from the band's archives (See:
Archival tracks and mixes). These releases were often curated by
Junior Boy's Own founder Steven Hall, and were compiled in a digital download for the
Drift Series 1 box set.
The Guardian "socialist banger" On 21 May 2019, Underworld released a new version of the track "Soniamode", originally featured on February's
Episode 2 — Atom. Now dubbed "Soniamode (Aditya Game Version)," it featured lyrics written by
The Guardian columnist and economics
commentator Aditya Chakrabortty. The band's
publicist knew Chakrabortty's 2018 column series
The Alternatives, "about how to make the
economy work for everyone," asked him to email a list of
inspirational people, ideas, and processes, for the band, and the list ended up as a chorus for the track. In September 2020, when asked about the status of the project, Smith responded "Series 2? We’re already there, though, we’re just trying to figure out how to roll it out," and elaborated "
Drift has always been happening, and Series 2 is merely a chosen starting point: a time and place." After
Drift Series 1, Underworld released a handful of new versions of classic tracks, including a remix of "
Dark & Long" subtitled "Drift 2 Dark Train." Beyond this, there has been no mention of a second series. In 2023 and 2024, the band released several new songs, and in September 2024 announced
Strawberry Hotel, a traditional studio album. ==
Drift Series 1==