Karl Hyde - Colours become sounds: The creative process behind Edgeland.

Musician and artist Karl Hyde is best known as one-half of the British electronic music group Underworld, who have sold millions of albums worldwide as well as scoring films, stage shows and the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic games.

Taking a break from Underworld, Hyde recently embarked on recording his first solo album entitled Edgeland. Inspired by what director Anthony Minghella called the 'esoteric Underworld' Hyde set out to explore the more melodic, guitar-based sound of Underworld tracks such as Blueski, River of Bass and SG. Armed only with a notebook of his unfinished lyrics, Hyde partnered with writer and producer Leo Abrahams and together they harnessed the improvisational recording techniques discovered through their collaborations with Brian Eno.

To accompany the release of Edgeland, Hyde also collaborated with filmmaker Kieran Evan to create a feature length documentary about the inspiration for the record, the city fringes of London and Essex. Both the Edgeland album and The Outer Edges film shine a light on what Hyde describes as his interest in the 'beauty of decay' of a place that has 'its own language and state of mind...'

Beyond his music, Hyde is founding member of the iconic design and art collective Tomato, as well as a renowned painter, with his exhibition "What's Going on in Your Head When You're Dancing?" translating his stage-based expression onto canvas. A synesthetic, the perceptual condition of mixed sensations, Hyde's creative process and vision of the world is one where 'colours become sounds, sounds become shapes and shapes become words'. In the words of Karl Hyde himself 'everything is a movie... I'm soaking up a lot of rhythm'.