UK cover (Nation Records)	US cover (MCA Records)

'Rejoice, Rejoice…'
is the title of Trans-Global Underground's most recent album, released in the summer of '98. If you haven't got it the following stuff wont make much sense but that's your loss. If you have got it then this might interest you and if there's any further questions, let us know…

1. A Nice Little Fish Business and Making Money
   Two statistics about this one; firstly it's the longest title TGU have ever come up with. Secondly, it's the shortest track.
2. Nile Delta Disco
   or possibly it's just called Delta Disco, no one's too sure. The lead vocal's by Tuup, the blues moans and harp blasts are by Errol Blues Daddy Linton, who packs out London pubs on regular occasions…the best, maybe the only good, bluesman in the city. The lyrics are inspired by the theory that the blues originated in ancient Egypt, a belief still strongly held by the Masr-Al-Gedida R&B club, Cairo and just about no one else except us. Still, try and prove us wrong…
3. Thousand Year Heat
   Vocal by Coleridge and sitar by Sheema Mukherjee, her first performance for TGU which has lead to her appearing on regular occasions live. We wont bore you with the technical difficulties of trying to get a sitar audible in a live situation but she's been very understanding about it, considering how often she can't hear herself at all.
4. Body Machine
   Vocals by Bapi Das Baul. Bapi represents the eighth generation of a Bengali family of musicians. He regularly plays with the family group led by his father, Purna Das Baul. Here's a quote from the sleevenotes to their album, 'Songs of Love and Ecstasy' (Real World WSCD006): "The Bauls are nomadic minstrels who wander through West Bengal from village to village to dance and sing songs of ecstasy and love, sharing with their audiences their longing for mystical union with the divine. The word 'Baul' is derived from the ancient Sanskrit word 'Batul' (mad) - mad for 'Maner manush', the soul of God within ourselves, whom we have to perceive and realise through inner enlightenment."
5. Imperial Hippy
   In 1996, Trans-Global Underground travelled to Marrakech with Jaz Coleman, he of Killing Joke fame who, somewhere along the line, had trained as a composer in Cairo. The intention was to come up with a new single for TGU, instead, hours of music were recorded including some ambient noises, jamming with local musicians, and a number of rhythmic workouts. So far this is the only fragment to have been released from these sessions; a field recording of Tim Whelan and Hamid man Tu trying to haggle the price of some local dudes up rather than down in an idealistic protest against western touristic exploitation (yeah, sure.)
6. Rude Buddah
   This was instigated in Budapest during TGUs first visit there in the summer of 1997. The idea was a collaboration with some of Hungary's leading gypsy musicians and on this track Kalman Balogh plays cimbalom while Ferenc Balogh and Istvan Nagy of the group Romanyi Rota provide voices, mandolins, spoons, milk churns and other fine noises. Some people have asked for more information about these dudes; well there are the following albums… Romanyi Rota: 'O Cerhariko' Etnofon ER-CD 006 Kalman Balogh: 'Kalman Balogh and the Gypsy Cimbalom Group'…this is a self-produced CD. We've no idea how to get hold of these albums outside Hungary.
7. Air Giant
   At the time of writing this, this track is being used as the soundtrack for the trailer to the film 'Shakespeare in Love.' Not the film, just the trailer. Don't ask us.
8. Ali Mullah
   A collaboration with the Rajasthani gypsy group Musafir.
   "We met them up a mountain in Switzerland, we were at a festival and these guys came on and they were doing traditional music and a bit of walking on glass and dancing on their noses and stuff. We thought this was good. Slowly this relationship developed over a year or two. We kept talking about doing something and eventually that track came out of a festival in Slovenia where we did a collaboration onstage and we developed the track from there." (from an interview with Brett Miller in Highwire Daze…thanks Brett)
   At the time of recording 'Ali Mullah' Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan had just died and Musafir dedicated the track to him in memory of a man who had opened so many doors to so many musicians.
9. City of Gold
   A TGU track running at one tempo with vocals by Tuup met some ideas from Aki of Fun-Da-Mental running at a different tempo. Coleridge finished the lyrics and South African vocalist Doreen Thebokile Webster (currently working with our London comrades Xangbetos) finished the tune. Ha! simple.
10. Chemnitz
    Chemnitz is a city in what was East Germany. In the time of East Germany it was renamed Karl Marx-Stadt and all traces of the name Chemnitz were removed. Now it's called Chemnitz again and all traces of the name Karl Marx-Stadt have been removed. Any time that history gets removed in central Europe, the history of the treatment of the Gypsies goes down with it. Kalman Balogh appears again, along with his violinist, Laszlo Major.
11. Shining Iron Face
    Originally entitled Kill the Taliban, which is a pretty good guide to what the found voice on this one's singing about. Bapi appears again on percussion , the Romanyi Rota crew are in there, and Larry Whelan, of Banco de Gaia and Natacha's band appears on clarinet.
12. Son of Thingdrum
    was indeed the child of a track called Thingdrum, a massive drum barrage by Hamid and percussionists Terry Neale (currently playing with Temple of Sound) and Pete Lockett (currently playing everywhere). Mix engineer David White started playing around with it and this version emerged after much studio trickery and editing. The live version is an even younger descendant, known as Grandson of Thingdrum.
13. Sky Giant
    Another descendant of something pretty different, only in this case the original was charmingly entitled 'Bullfrogs Are Having Their Throats Cut,' featuring a voice intoning the title. Sadly TGU couldn't get permission to use the sample of this voice so the title was changed. Live, it's a chance to get on as many members of the Dhol Foundation as can be got hold of at the time; funnily enough the Dhol Foundation themselves still call the track 'Bullfrogs.' And, in our hearts, that's what it is. A totally different mix , featuring Coleridge and titled 'Giant Bullfrog' appears on the compilation 'Sitar funk Volume One.'

For more information on Transglobal Underground please contact:

 

tgu1@mac.com