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Trans-Global
Underground …a history…
Trans-Global
Underground had to happen. They refused to accept that dance
music had to be four to the floor house. They refused to accept
that something called ‘World Music’ ever existed.
They slowed down hip hop and sped up dub. They sang in whatever
language they felt like singing in. they were DJs but they played
live. Their influence is all over the place, sometimes benign,
sometimes joyful, sometimes beautiful and sometimes bloody dreadful.
But the price of innovation is often a trail of shite left in
your wake. A thousand dodgy car adverts with colourful tribespeople,
colonialised blanded out ethnic samples and ten year old beats…that’s
not it at all…
We’re
talking about the early nineties here, when drum and bass were
two separate things and trip hop was something you did on a
paving stone. It’s a long time ago, many brain cells have
been lost since and, in any case, it’s often been uncertain
as to who Trans-Global Underground were from one day to the
next. Names were changed at will, members came and went and
often came back again, so forgive us if you were there at the
time and it all looked different.
So, fact:
the name Trans-Global Underground followed on from the recording
of a single, ‘Temple Head’ for Nation records, a
label created specifically to fuse western dance music with
Arabic music, Asian music, African music…then more a dream
than a reality. Some names: (some only dreamt up later) Man
Tu, Tax D, Alex Kasiek, percussionists Goldfinger and Terry
Neale the Human Quica, rapper Sheriff, Aki from the soon to
be notorious Fun-Da-Mental. Some background experiences: DJ
culture, Indian classical, reggae, bhangra, hip hop, community
politics, underground art and eighties pop. ‘Temple head’
was the result of this meeting and Trans-Global Underground
was the result of ‘Temple Head.’
‘Temple
Head’ caused delight and confusion in equal measure. DJs
such as Andy Weatherall Danny Rampling and Monkey Pilot caught
on fast while other DJs, confronted by a record featuring tablas,
Polynesian vocals and playing at 95bpm, simply played the thing
at 45rpm instead of 33. It became Single of the Week in Melody
Maker and got played on daytime Radio One. The first public
faces of TGU appeared; three Nepalese Temple guardians, an identity
which caught the mood of the single and saved effort on photo
sessions.
At
this point, along came Deconstruction Records, quick to seize
on anything going on on the dance scene, with an offer to make
an album for them. Quickly an assortment of friends, associates
and distant relatives got thrown into a studio in Euston and
recorded the fundamentals of what was to be TGUs first album.
Tuup, a very old ally, got involved at this point and Jalal
from Loop Guru co-wrote one track. The sessions also marked
the first appearance of vocalist Natacha Atlas, who had recently
departed from Invaders of the Heart. She gave a performance
that reduced the whole studio to tears, then capped it by belly
dancing round the control room wearing a copy of the Daily Mirror.
So she was in. Everyone
was delighted with the results except for Deconstruction, who
couldn’t see the point of any of it. Well, it was their
money. Like it or not, a momentum had started up and a live
line-up was put together, consisting of ManTu, Dubulah, Natacha,
Goldfinger and Kasiek, with Tuup as a floating extra member.
Most British dance acts of the time consisted of one singer
and two keyboard players in anoraks. Trans-Global Underground
rapidly gained a reputation for flamboyant live performances,
dramatic costumes, belly dancing, endless percussion and, of
course, Nepalese Temple guardians. They returned to their spiritual
home at Nation and recorded a second single, ‘I, Voyager.’
This marked the debut of beat poet and percussionist Neil Sparkes,
who became a regular member of the live team. By
the time of the third single, ‘Shimmer,’ a track
from the Deconstruction sessions featuring Tuup, the word was
spreading and Nation, with Fun-da-Mental and Loop Guru also
getting serious media coverage, finally had the wherewithal
to get an album out. ‘Dream of 100 nations’ basically
consisted of the Deconstruction sessions plus ‘I, Voyager’
and a couple of newer tracks. The reviews elsewhere on this
site tell you something about the sort of acclaim TGU were getting
by this point; the combination of so many musical styles was
something no one had got away with before and the live performances
were getting ecstatic reactions. ‘Dream of 100 Nations’
was acclaimed as one of the year’s best debuts, and when
it got into the top fifty it was inevitable that another major
company would start throwing its weight around. This time it
turned out to be Sony, who financed the second album, ‘International
Times.’ By this time, the basic live line-up was Mantu,
Dubulah, Natacha, Neil Sparkes and Attia Ahlan. This was soon
augmented by rapper Colerdige and multi-instrumentalist Larry
Whelan. This line-up began TGUs adventures into Europe and when
possible the show grew even bigger with the addition of percussionist
Satin Singh. Beyond
the live shows, TGU were also busy remixing and producing. They
captured a unique little niche by specialising in remixing industrial
bands such as Grotus and Headbutt, as detailed elsewhere on
this site. Their biggest task, however was producing Natachas
debut album for Beggars Banquet Records, ‘Diaspora’
which was more or less an unofficial Trans-Global Underground
album, in that it was based around the live line-up of the time
Her second album, ‘Halim,’ released in 1997, moved
away from the TGU sound in a more purely Arabic direction; however
the TGU produced single ‘Amulet’ was the track that
did the most to get her taken seriously by Arabic audiences. As
for TGU themselves, in 1996 ‘Psychic Karaoke,’ their
third official album, was released. Probably the groups most
polished album, it took the line-up of the time about as far
as it could go, so, after a lengthy spell of touring, it disbanded.
Neil Sparkes and Dubulah went on to form Temple of Sound with
Terry Neale and Larry Whelan went on to work with Banco de Gaia
and Natacha, who, while concentrating on her solo career, continued
to appear live with TGU. Once
again, Trans-Global Underground was a floating, indefinable
venture. For a while it was more of a club than a group, utilising
the services of North London clubland legends DJ Nelson Dilation
and VJ Sheikh Ad Helik. The reputation of the live act continued
to hold up, aided by the introduction of Johnny Kalsi, percussionist
and leader of Indian drumming troupe the Dhol Foundation. TGU
travelled into Eastern Europe, played in Sarajevo to mark the
end of the war in Yugoslavia, and made their first appearances
in the USA and Turkey. The album that followed these adventures,
‘Rejoice, Rejoice’ has a more in depth section to
itself elsewhere on this site. For
the tour around 'Rejoice Rejoice' Tuup who had appeared on every
album to date, reappeared onstage for the first time in a few
years, along with sitarist Sheema Mukherjee who had played on
the album. TGU pended 1998 with their biggest…and most
unexpected…tour to date, supporting Page and Plant on
a series of massive European shows, gaining a new audience and
pissing off the odd Central European rocker on the way. By
1999 Natacha and Johnny's own projects were taking up too much
of their time to continue playing with TGU, but Natacha's third
album, 'Gedida' was largely TGU produced, notably the single
'Mon Amie La Rose' which was a big hit in France, and the band
still work with her on recording projects. Around
the same time, TGU parted company with Nation Records…though
they still keep bumping into each other…so it was time
for a change. Two more of the cast of 'Rejoice Rejoice' came
onboard fulltime…Punjabi percussionist Gurjit Sihra and
Zulu vocalist Doreen Thobekile, who had worked with Hamid before
on the Xangbetos project for Nation. With a new burst of energy,
TGU started travelling further outwards, touring in India, Tunisia,
Turkey, South Africa and playing regularly around Eastern Europe.
In
between, some time was also spent in Egypt working with various
Egyptian artists including Hakim, Riko, Mika Sabet and of course
Natacha Atlas. TGU worked extensively on Hakims first official
western release ‘Yaho’ and got involved in a residency
in a Cairo nightclub, before heading back to London to complete
the new TGU album. The
Egyptian sessions were a natural result of TGUs work as remixer
and producer for a number of Middle Eastern artists; over this
period they had hits in the Arabic speaking world plus a number
one hit in Turkey with a remix of, of all things, a Greek folk
song called ‘Capkin’… The
latest TGU recordings became the album 'Yes Boss Food Corner'
which was half finished when the band signed up to Ark21 Records
new label, Mondo Rhythmica. The album was released in 2001 but
the relationship was shortlived, although the touring stepped
up, with the band visiting Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Venezuela
and an endless list of others. After
the end of the touring for ‘Yes Boss Food Corner’
TGU concentrated on DJ sets and soundsystems, with which they
could venture into many corners of Europe hithertoo unreachable.
In 2003 Coleridge opened a dance record business of his own
and TGU and Doreen Thobekile began work on a solo project of
hers. In the aurtumn TGU began work on a new project which became
the sixth album, ‘Impossible Broadcasting.’ This
was recorded in London, Prague, Budapest and notably in Sofia,
as part of a studio and live project with legendary Bugarian
tradtitional group Trio Bugarka. For
the next tour the live band now stripped down to a 5 piece,
and, with once more a more club based line-up, started playing
the UK regularly for the first time in more than 6 years, turning
up regularly at festivals and venues throughout the country.
Doreen
Thobekliles solo album, ‘London Zulu’ came out in
2006, and is available here. Members of TGU still appear with
her at live shows…..and indeed, she often appears onstage
with TGU, as well as most recent arrivals, Rav on dhol and tabla,
and Krupa on vocals, both of whom appear with the rest of the
family on the current album ‘Moonshout.’ For
more information on Transglobal Underground please contact: tgu1@mac.com
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