MODERN GLOBAL FUSION: World Music For The New Millennium (December 1996)

A former member of electronic music pioneers Tangerine Dream, the classically-trained Paul Haslinger now ventures into a World Without Rules (RGB), aided by other musicians including pop diva Nona Hendryx and Grammy-award winning trumpeter and film composer Mark Isham. Middle Eastern, Indonesian, and Indian sounds mesh with electronic music and dance and rock rhythms in a potent musical statement. Rules is an album without boundaries: on "Monkey Brain Sushi", a highly forceful, fractured Indonesian ritual Monkey Chant explodes over thunderous ethnic percussion and unusual wordless vocals by Anna Homler. Amidst the sultry desert aura of "Urban Source Code", Isham offers some languid trumpet playing which normally would slip into a soft jazz or R&B groove. Haslinger also mellows things out with the spacey "Asian Blue", where two or three dozen Sanskrit vocal phrases have been sampled into a synthesizer and overlaid in such a manner that they create an enigmatic choir.

In describing his approach to Rules, Haslinger says: "My general point is to comment on life at the end of the 20th century, the theme being that the world, in terms of data, has become one huge digital playground (we've heard it all before), and that cultural identity (for lack of a better word) is not defined by birthplace and society, but by data exposure and source selection. This is not backwards but a trend, slowly taking over from traditional patterns." He cites his "global life" - not having one particular home - as another strong influence.

England's Loop Guru have been compared (unfairly) to Enigma. Unlike the contrived pop stylings of that group, Loop Guru fashion powerful, rhythmic dance music which assimilates a variety of ethnic elements into its musical melting pot. Their second album Amrita....all these and the Japanese soup warriors (World Domination) blends a variety of sounds and styles together using both live and sampled instruments: Gregorian chants float over dub rhythms; operatic vocals accompany sampled ethnic percussion and a snake charming melody; and gentle flutes glide over eccentric vocalizations and strong Arabic rhythms. Some people might accuse them of cultural plundering, but unlike many hackneyed dance artists, Loop Guru have skillfully assimilated their influences into a catchy aural stew. And they seem to be continually referenced in this hybrid arena. "I don't know if we actually fit," multi-instrumentalist Sam Dodson says in relation to his group's supposed niche. "It seems to be me that there are loads of people doing kind of similar things to the way we do it, but I always see us as misfits in any idea of a movement." He continues to add: "Part of what we want to do is to break down the boundaries, the borders musically. I think a lot of other people are quite happy that they've found what they do, and they don't break outside of that. We're always trying to break outside of what we do."

On their Real World debut, Volume 1, Sound Magic, Afro Celt Sound System - who have shared the same stage with Loop Guru - take an electro-acoustic approach in an unusual way: marrying Celtic melodies and rhythms with African ones within the context of house, trip hop, and jungle beats, updating traditional music for a 90s audience. The group recorded everything live, using no samples (although the dance tracks are obviously programmed), and the beats naturally fit into the music. The album resonates with life: check out the melodic Celtic techno of "Dark Moon, High Tide" and the Afro-Celtic "Whirl-n-Reel (Folk Police Mix)". "Sure As Not" embodies the best elements of this album: at the start, dub bass, slow beats, and a pretty harp mingle together, the harp overlaid with another stringed instrument to produce a sitar effect. Then the energy picks up via lively Celtic strings and techno pulses before moving headlong into a faster jungle section, the spastic rhythms complementing the mixture of Celtic guitar, Indian percussion, and singing children.

Bay Area quartet Trance Mission avoid driving through the world of dance music and prefer to maintain an organic quality to their work. On their newest and third album Head Light (City of Tribes), the talented group immerse themselves in Middle Eastern and African spheres while also swimming through the pools of folk and jazz. Call it Third World jazz, ethnoambient trance, or world music, but Trance Mission are strong purveyors of atmospheric fusion. On the title track to the new album, Middle Eastern winds, African percussion, a growling Australian didgeridoo, and soothing clarinet commingle gracefully, drawing on different cultures to form a new sound. On some songs, a synthesizer whispers in the background, adding an ambient tinge. The jazz-inflected clarinet playing of Beth Custer adds another dimension to the album, cleverly bringing an instrument associated with jazz and classical into a Third World forum. "This album has a lot more African influences than our other recordings," remarks Custer. "I've been listening to Dimi Mint Abba of Mauritania, the women of Mali - compilations of individual artists' recordings, Pygmy recordings made in the '60s and '70s for several years. [Didgeridoo player] Stephen [Kent] listens to a lot of West African and Malian artists."

Australian-based Shinjuku Theif were ahead of the world fusion curve in 1992 with the radical Bloody Tourist (Extreme). Many of the fusion elements here are often of a more unusual nature, although the record itself is quite diverse. A jazzy saxophone plays over African percussion on "Feather Woman of the Jungle", while quiet synth ambience and a simple, punctuating bass line fill out the atmosphere. At the song's culmination, the drums become more lively as a rap turntable accompanies their climax. "Hallucinations" ups the ante, driven by various combinations of Indian tabla, Indonesian masterdrum, and a drum machine, as operatic female vocals float over electronics and the dancing string melody of an Armenian oud. The most outrageous work on Tourist is the powerful "Graven Image". Amidst a busy street market, a strong rhythmic pulse of Lebanese and Indonesian drums build up before a shrieking electric guitar shatters everything with its charged feedback and high-pierced notes. These combating elements actually complement one another in a very strong way.

The availability of these new ethnic hybrids becomes greater each day, and via live performances and even TV commercials, the accessibility of this music is increasing. Trance Mission, Loop Guru, and Afro Celt Sound System have collectively and individually played many live gigs which - via such world music tours as Peter Gabriel's WOMAD and separate club tours - exposes different audiences to these exciting new sounds. This modern global fusion is taking a main avenue to the imminent Global Village we keep hearing about.

© 2000 Bryan Reesman