TRANSGLOBAL UNDERGROUND (UK)
BOOKING CZ & SK
David Urban
Kubelíkova 27
130 00 Praha 3
Czech republic
PHONE: +420 296 330 980
MOBILE: +420 731 150 172
EMAIL: david@dsmacku.com

rans-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. It all seems so obvious now. Their influence is all over the place, sometimes benign, sometimes joyful, sometimes hidden deep, 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 tribes people, colonialised blanded out ethnic samples and five year old beats…that’s not it at all…

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. ‘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. At this point it wasn’t too clear who was in the group and TGU and Nation had a joint policy of only sanctioning interviews in TGUs
name with interviewees who were only faintly connected with the group; if they knew anything about them at all.

But Trans-Global Underground turned out to be very real indeed, appearing as a live band presenting one of the best live shows in the country at the time featuring a whole mix of live instruments and percussion, rappers dancers and bellydancing vocalist Natacha Atlas…imagine Basement Jaxx jamming in a Cairo nightclub with Princes rhythm section and you’re halfway there. Their audience was accordingly varied. One night they’d be at a hardcore rave in Glasgow, the next a bhangra night in Birmingham, next in a club on an indie lineup in London, next at a hiphop night in Cardiff…TGU and Nations mix of breaks, rap, Arabic and Indian samples, and heavy helpings of ragga, house and funk, now sounds like a premonition of a whole heap of music out there currently.

In the late nineties, as a fog of Goa trance and ambience descended on the UK, it was time to move further afield. TGU producers HAMID MAN TU and TIM WHELAN worked for a while in Egypt along with Natacha Atlas for whom they produced a hit single and gold album in France, while turning out tracks for artists in the Middle East. The band played regularly in Eastern Europe, where they’re still a big success, and moved further afield into South Africa, India, Tunisia, Kazakhstan…still appearing sometimes as a 7 piece full on band, sometimes as a soundsystem, sometimes as DJs.

In Trans-Global Underground’s endless schedule of recording producing and performing, Britain became pretty neglected; in fact none of the band were able to confirm whether their last album, ‘Yes Boss Food Corner’ had ever been released here at all. How much this bothers them isn’t clear…not even to them. Today TGU are in the incredibly fortunate position to be able to make their own music without either compromising or being pushed into obscurity. They exist like a self-contained music business operating offshore and transmitting to who they please when they please. Hence the title of their new album, ‘Impossible Broadcasting’.

LINKS
homepage
MEMBERS
Tuup — vocals
Sheema Murkherjee — sitar, bass
Hami — drums, keyboards, programming
Tim Whelan — keyboards, programming
DISCOGRAPHY
1993   Dream of 100 Nations
1994   International Times
1995   Interplanetary Meltdown
1996   Psychic Karaoke
1998   Rejoice Rejoice
1999   Backpacking On The Graves Of Our Ancestors (2CD)
2001   Yes Boss Food Corner
2004   Impossible Broadcasting
LIVE
No concerts found
PHOTOGALLERY
TRANSGLOBAL UNDERGROUND — PHOTOGALLERY
WEB
TRANSGLOBAL UNDERGROUND — PHOTOGALLERY
WEB

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