Unkle ft. Ian Brown - Be There

"I might see you falling."

Album: Psyence Fiction [debut album]
Genre: Trip Hop
Recorded:  California & London
Album Release: August 24th 1998
Single Release: February 8th 1999 [second single]
Length: 5:17
Producer: DJ Shadow
Vocalist: Ian Brown
Label: Mo' Wax

Music Video

Charts, Streams & Sales

UK (albums): #4
UK (singles): #8
Spotify: Over 6 million
YouTube Music: Over 600 thousand

Instruments

Details

• 'Be There' is a version of the instrumental track 'Unreal', with vocals by the former Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown. The original pressings of Psyence Fiction only featured 'Unreal'. Later versions of the album featured 'Be There' as the final track.
  
  
• Unkle are DJ Shadow with vocals. In 1994, Shadow produced a masterpiece of instrumental hip hop in the form of Endtroducing, on Mo' Wax Records. It was revolutionary and provided the world a nocturnal music without vocals that also felt finished and self-contained as its own thing. If vocals were to be added, common sense dictated they must be rapping. Instrumental hip hop is still hip hop after all. James Lavelle had other ideas.
  
  
  
  As the founder of Mo' Wax, Lavelle used his industry connections to recruit indie rockers, not rappers, to lace what is effectively DJ Shadow's second album. The record, and its remixes, featured guest appearances by none other than Richard Ashcroft, Ian Brown, Noel Gallagher and Thom Yorke, in what could be a call-sheet of the British indie-rock A-list at the time.
  
  
• DJ Shadow made all the beats on Psyence Fiction. James Lavelle only created the idea for the album, trip hop meets rock, and used his connections to make it happen. It's a stretch to credit Unkle as Shadow and Lavelle, when the latter didn't make any of the music on the album.
  
  However, Unkle first released a single in 1992, long before Shadow joined the group, and continued to make music under the same name afterwards. Shadow only worked under the name for one record. Unkle is, at its heart, a collaborative project that has brought together artists from across the worlds of rap, rock, and trip hop. Their records are disjointed at times, feeling like a compilation album instead of one coherent idea.
  
  
• James Lavelle founded Mo' Wax Records when he was 18.
  
  

Artwork