Underworld techno's underheard collective

In America, Underworld holds the unfortunate distinction of being "another techno band." They are neither Fatboy Slim nor Moby, and as a result, most of their fame here is as undignified as Blur being known as "the guys who did that 'Woo-Hoo' song." Their brilliant 1996 club smash "Born Slippy" was featured as the exit music of that year's equally raw film triumph, Trainspotting. Beyond that they're veritable unknowns.\nOn the contrary, they've enjoyed an illustrious career with European audiences, as their new retrospective 1992-2002 reveals. Included are unreleased Primal Scream-esque works from before 1994's Dubnobasswithmyheadman, numerous tracks from 1999's Beaucoup Fish and obvious crowd-pleasers like "Rez," "Cowgirl" and "King of Snake." The first disc of this set contains never-before-released mixes; the second is made up of retreads of old hits. \nThis is polished, refined and well-executed dance music, very much distinguishable from Robert Miles and other Ibiza trash meant to entertain 14-year-olds at raves before they keel over from the Altoids they mistakenly took for DXM. It's a shame that electronic music with this much artistic merit is ignored and yet "Tha Rockafella Skank" has probably been used in over 100 movies. Then again, as Eminem said, "Nobody listens to techno"