Over the last half-century there have been literally millions of music compositions released and yet a minute amount of those truly work their way into my heart. Of those tunes that do, there is quite possibly only ten to twelve tracks that seriously send me into an otherworldly hypnotic state simply by playing them. I’m talking about music that you put the needle on the record and play over and over and over again, time after time, without stopping to play another track. For these, I simply shut my eyes and the melodies float me away to another place, another time, and another world. Music is my drug of choice!
Of these extremely absorbing songs, which includes ‘Neon Lights’ (Kraftwerk), ‘I Feel Love’ (Donna Summer) and ‘Porcelain’ (Moby), there is one that transports me back to the romantic days of sailing ships on the warm seas and the sun on my face, this being ‘I, Voyager’ by Trans-Global Underground (also written as Transglobal Underground).
I had it in my mind that the sailing ships images must have been correct as the tune says “I′ll bring in spice; I’ll bring the taste of one hundred nations” and “The wind blows warm from Africa and Gaia”, (although at the time when released, I believed ‘Gaia’ was actually ‘Guyana’, which made sense to me as the sailing boats would travel the trade winds from Guyana in South America to say Sierra Leone in Africa and back). The song is probably nothing to do with my imaginative thoughts, but I don’t care!
‘I’ Voyager’ is found on Trans-Global Underground’s debut album, ‘Dream Of 100 Nations’, which was released back in 1993. An album that included their 1991 ‘Temple Head’ single, which was later used in a Coca-Cola advertising campaign for the 1996 Olympic Games.
Before Trans-Global Underground there was new wave post punk outfit Furniture, famed for ‘Brilliant Mind’. The band was formed in 1979 in the Ealing area of London by Tim Whelan, Hamilton Lee and Jim Irvin. The trio remained in the band until they folded in 1991. While with Furniture, Whelan and Lee had demonstrated an interest in world music by bringing in more culturally-diverse instrumentation to what was originally a fairly conventional rock band line up.
Trans-Global Underground was first formed when Whelan and Lee teamed up with a third musician, Nick Page. All three took on pseudonyms for the project, which they have determinedly maintained (albeit with variations) up until the present day. Whelan became vocalist, keyboardist, guitarist, “Alex Kasiek”; percussionist, drummer, keyboardist, programmer Lee became “Hamid Mantu”; and Page became bassist and sampler “Count Dubulah”. The group’s core was also composed of vocalist Natacha Atlas who has recorded with Jah Wobble, Apache Indian, and her own band, Atlas Project.
Trans-Global Underground grew out of a mutual love for dance, avant-garde, Arabic, and world music and draws on each member’s listening tastes and cultural backgrounds. Many albums followed 1993’s ‘Dream Of 100 Nations’ with ‘International Times’ in 1994, ‘Interplanetary Meltdown’ in 1995, and ‘Psychic Karaoke’ (1996). ‘Rejoice, Rejoice’ followed two years later and ‘Yes Boss Food Corner’ appeared in spring 2001. Since then another seven albums have dropped ‘Impossible Broadcasting’ (2004), ‘Moonshout’ (2007), ‘A Gathering Of Strangers’ (2010), ‘The Stone Turntable’ (2011), ‘Kabatronics’ (2013), ‘Walls Have Ears’ (2020) and ‘A Gathering Of Strangers 2021’ (2021).
The current lineup features Sheema Mukherjee, TUUP, Rav Neiyyar, Hamid Mantu and Tim Whelan.
Surprisingly, as far as I can recall, Trans-Global Underground haven’t crossed the border into Sussex all that too often. But it has now been announced that local promoters Easy Skankin’ will be bringing Trans-Global Underground for a live performance to The Con Club in Lewes on Saturday 6th January 2024. The event will run from 7:30pm until 11pm.
As their former band sang “You must be out of your brilliant mind” ……if you don’t attend this concert!
Tickets are available to purchase HERE with no booking fee.
Check out the work of Trans-Global Underground on their Bandcamp page HERE.
