Transglobal Underground
Transglobal Underground (sometimes written as Trans-Global Underground) is an English electro-world music group, specializing in a fusion of western, Asian and African music styles (sometimes labelled world fusion and ethno techno).
Their first four albums featured Natacha Atlas as lead singer, and their single "Temple Head" was used in a Coca-Cola advertising campaign for the 1996 Olympic Games.
In 2008 they won the BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music after the release of their seventh official album, Moonshout. Their most recent release is 2020's Walls Have Ears, marking Atlas' return as a guest with the group. Their work has been described as "a collision of tradition and innovation
Line Up
TRANS-GLOBAL UNDERGROUND BACK IN ACTION IN 2017....after spending much of 2016 in the studio preparing new recordings, which will be being released over the year, Transglobal Underground, with shows being confirmed from May onwards.
There are few acts in the UK with as strong an influence, as complex a legacy, and as mysteriously legendary; even trying to describe what Transglobal Underground is and what it was has defeated the most eloquent of journalists, and those involved in TGU itself have made no effort to help, refusing to define themselves on the grounds that it wasn’t their job to do so while rejecting any signs anyone attempted to hang on them.
So what is Transglobal Underground? Well, over 25 years it’s been a DJ/musical collective, a working band famous for it’s scorching live shows, a techno soundsystem, a folk festival rabble rouser, a pop group, a club night, a Middle Eastern hit production team, an improvised study group for Indian classical music, an Albanian brass band, a duo..or was it an octet?...a seminar, a medicine show and several things no one involved would admit to if they could even remember them.
The music? Starting out in the 90s as a heady blend of dub, funk and bhangra with a strong Madchester vibe, TGU have taken in a huge mixture of influences and style from around the world, a world they have always seen from the viewpoint of their London base. By the time the word multiculturalism was being bandied about as a buzz word TGU had long moved on , sticking to only two rules; it’s got to be funky and if you hear the warning sound of a barrier ahead, smash it down with bass.
The albums? From the top 40 debut ‘Dream of 100 Nations’ to the double independent music awards winning ‘Kabatronics’ in 2015, TGU have built up an huge legacy of music which different audiences have chit upon and loved in different eras, leading to a bizarre reputation for being at once a best selling band/production team and at the same time an entity thriving in the depths of the underground that they helped define.
That selfsame legacy of 25 years of adventures in groove defines TGUs current live set, a joyful and unpredictable journey into the bottomless vaults of the Transglobal catalogue. Still a big festival favourite across Europe, no one at the start would have predicted that after all these years Transglobal Underground would still have the energy to continue a touring schedule that would finish most groups off. Transglobal Underground developed a life of its own, goes where it will for it’s own reasons. Everyone else simply follows.
