Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

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Digital Spy FEBRUARY 11, 2013 - by Mayer Nissim

DAVID BOWIE TOOK US ALL BY SURPRISE, SAYS UNDERWORLD'S KARL HYDE

Karl Hyde has said that he bought David Bowie's comeback single straight away on principle to say "thank you" to the pop icon for his past work.

The Underworld frontman told Digital Spy that he had previously told their shared friend and collaborator Brian Eno that he thought Bowie still had the ability to surprise.

"I bought it straight away on principle as a thank you for all that he's done," Hyde said of Bowie's shock return with Where Are We Now?.

"But the more I play it the more I like it. It just makes me smile. It's like, 'Oh, you did it again! You took us all by surprise'. I think for a lot of years perhaps that wasn't the case."

He added: "I'd had conversations with Brian where I was saying, 'Look, you know, we've got to do something! You've got to do something!'

"We owe this guy... I owe this guy! Perhaps Brian doesn't, but I do.

"I know they're still very good friends. I was like, 'We've got to do something because this man, I think he's got more surprises up his sleeve'. And there you go. He did!"

Asked about Eno's influence on his own upcoming solo debut Edgeland, Hyde said: "Brian's been an influence ever since I was a kid. When I first heard Roxy Music I thought, 'That's it, this is fantastic'.

"Then the whole Berlin quartet, if you include Iggy's album that he did with David [Low, The Idiot, "Heroes" and Lodger].

"That was a mystical and quite a magical period in time. When Underworld were making the Barking album those were the only four albums I rotated. I just read and studied about that period of time in Berlin."

Bowie's long-awaited follow-up to 2003's Reality, The Next Day, is released on March 8 in Germany, March 11 in the UK and March 12 in the USA/Canada.

Hyde's Edgeland is released on April 18.