Craig Stephen revisits a lost classic …
It’s the mid-90s, and the British and international media are all over the phenomenon that has been labelled Britpop. Oasis and Blur have battled for the number one spot, Pulp are unlikely glam stars, and any band with a guitar and a love of The Beatles are being played ad nauseum on mainstream radio.
What chance has a band like Transglobal Underground got?
Playing diverse sounds from South London to South Asia in a variety of languages, they can’t be dubbed “retro opportunists”. That may have been too much of a challenge for the music critics of the time.
In the midst of this Britpop banality, Psychic Karaoke was released and was easily one of the albums of its year. It shouted at the Britpop bands and their media lackeys: “this is the future”.
I
picked up the album on sale in Auckland and played it a little in the City of
Sails before heading to Fiji. On a relatively remote island group it was on a
regular spin cycle as it served as the perfect soundtrack to a country full of
culture, friendly people, pristine beaches and palm trees.
Psychic Karaoke, TGU’s fourth album, released on Nation Records and entirely self-produced, evokes visions of the Middle East and India with electronic rhythms and atmospherics.
It serves up cinematic textures and global grooves, mixing dance-friendly exotica, that utilised tablas, dhols, ouds, and djembe as well as guitar, violin/viola and cello. It features the magnificent voice of Egyptian-Belgian superstar Natacha Atlas and British-Asian singer Nawazish Ali Khan.
Hip-hop, dub, electronica, pop, and art rock are all here - and more.
The seven-minute ‘Chariot’ is the entry point to Psychic Karaoke. It’s a magnificent, meandering track featuring Middle Eastern percussion, a string section and breakbeats. It’s not until the three minute mark that Atlas comes in, working in tandem with an English language pseudo rap. It sounds like there’s far too much going on here, but it works and the instruments add an extra exotic element.
Atlas performs on half of the 12 tracks, a favourable number as she had released her debut solo album Diaspora the year before and her solo projects have significantly diminished her ability to record with TGU, and the various other artists she has collaborated with.
One of the tracks she doesn’t appear on is ‘Scully’ towards the end of the album. Instead, TGU’s Neil Sparkes takes on vocal duties and has a style similar to Barry Adamson, which is uncanny as part of one line is “Something wicked this way comes”, which happens to be the title of a track from Adamson’s Oedipus Schmoedipus album released the year before. It may well be a homage to the Mancunian singer, but they are very different songs.
Transglobal
Underground have released many albums since 1996, all exploring different
musical elements, cultures and genres. Some have worked and some haven’t but
respect is due to a band that works outside the box.
No comments:
Post a Comment