Karl Hyde: Edgeland – review

The uncertain zone at the margins of London, where city ends and countryside begins, is the preoccupation of this new album from Karl Hyde, on a break from his dancefloor-pumping, Olympic ceremony-scoring day job with Underworld. Like many thoughtful wanderers before him (notably Patrick Keiller and Iain Sinclair), Hyde, a Romford resident, finds poetry in hinterlands dotted with skeletal cranes, disused factories and rundown cafes. However, the album (co-produced with composer Leo Abrahams, and accompanied by a film called The Outer Edges) is strangely underpowered – the music sounds watered down – and Hyde's stream-of-consciousness lyrics are more rambling than visionary.