Transglobal Underground

Transglobal Underground are probably the godfathers of world fusion. A mighty claim, but largely true, dating back to their first single, "Templehead," which set the course for the genre known as ‘ethno-techno.'

But they, and music, have come a long way since then, as they show on their new album, Yes Boss Food Corner, which sees them charting a bit of a new course, including touches of soul and R&B.

"When we get together there's a funk R&B, soul feel in the middle of what everyone's into."

"There is a bit of that influence," agreed keyboard player Tim Whelan. "It's been there, as a slight development for us, over the last couple of years, but we haven't had an album out in that time."

The new version of TGU, though, with several fresh members, successfully brings together several of the strands of the past, including the Indian vein of "One Of Our Dholaks Is Missing" that's always been a part of their sounds, from when "we were one of the first groups putting tabla on dance records," recalled Whelan. "A lot of Indian musicians worked on Psychic Karaoke. The difference was, they were guests, whereas on this album two people are full-time members, on sitar and percussion. And there's a strong African influence. This was a strong group album. And when we get together there's a funk R&B, soul feel in the middle of what everyone's into."

Making changes was a definite part of the game plan, since "what we've done before, it's done. It's been successful, and we're happy with it, but if you keep repeating yourself, you get an ever-decreasing audience. Our third album (Psychic Karaoke) probably had the best response from our audience, but sold least. Rejoice Rejoice probably did better in the long term and kept reaching out to people."

For several years, Transglobal has been a lucrative remix team, especially with North African and Middle Eastern artists - in 1998 they did an entire remix album for Egyptian sha'bi star Hakim, then a couple of years later worked with both him and Iraq's Kazem Al-Saher.

"We'd worked with Hakim, and I ended up in Egypt for a long time," explained Whelan. "We had a strong identification with a lot of Arabic music, in part through [foprmer vocalist] Natacha [Atlas]'s music. But the Hakim stuff wasn't just a remix - we worked directly on a couple of the tracks, so it was more than a collaboration. We did three tracks, and one was a remix."

While they made their initial reputation as a studio outfit, the modern Transglobal Underground has developed into a real live band, and for this record they "took out a lot of the ideas and played them live for a year before recording, which was important to us. A lot of people say records don't have the flavor of the live show, and we wanted something more defined in terms of this group of people. We went further in that sense than we have before."

But they do keep their lineup fluid for concerts, sometimes utilizing a lot of samples.

"At one point we had a 9-piece band another we had four people and much more of a club vibe. It depends on the mood. With this lineup, it's half and half on samples. Right now we use a bass sequence on stage. Besides the drums and rhythm line, there are less samples going on now than before."

Transglobal Underground

"When we get together there's a funk R&B, soul feel in the middle of what everyone's into."

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