The preparations for London 2012 might be responsible for all kinds of shuffling around going on in the vicinity of the Quietus offices, but on July 27th next year we should at least be able to hear the strains of Underworld drifting across the canal from the Olympic complex.
The long-running dance duo have been appointed as Music Directors for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. The duo join a team that already includes filmmaker Danny Boyle as Artistic Director – somewhat appropriate, given his use of their track ‘Born Slippy’ as an iconic accompaniment to Trainspotting.
The duo will be responsible for the entire musical side of the three-hour long ceremony next summer. "We want to leave people with a musical memory of the show rather than a purely visual one," said Underworld’s Karl Hyde. "It’s a great honour to be asked to do this and one we’re taking very seriously – it’s certainly not something we’ll get the chance to do again."
"Appointing Underworld to direct the music in the Olympic Opening Ceremony is the final piece of the jigsaw for the team of leading British creatives who will deliver the ceremonies," said Boyle. "What’s interesting about working with them is how much broader their taste is than you might imagine. With ‘Frankenstein’ [a 2010 theatrical collaboration between Boyle and Underworld, which took place at the National Theatre] we really saw how far we could take a broader approach than we’d used together on the films."
Probably safe not to just expect three solid hours of hard-hitting, festival-friendly dance anthems, then.
