Transglobal Underground
Psychic Karaoke

THE REVIEW

Middle age is the unpleasant one.

When he came into the world, everyone gathered around to sing his praises, to be surprised by every expression, to enjoy the novelty. Then no one paid attention to him anymore, and for a few years he was forgotten. Now people are starting to talk about him again because of his enterprises, adventures, and achievements. School endeavors, adventures with the scout group, parish tournament victories: that little devil of my nephew is back in the spotlight for what he does, after having briefly monopolized it just for being born.

TGU wanted to become adults immediately, but their middle period didn't end: once the surprise for the intercultural festival they organized for us in the early '90s wore off, they discovered, in this third album, that they still needed to develop clear tendencies that could relaunch them to public interest.
Their pop-art collages did not respect any of the sources they pilfered from: an "Aloha" welcome, a lei of orchids, a banana skirt and straight to the dance floor with the imperative to cling to the most exotic partner. There's a nomadic drumbeat, a snippet of krautrock, and a load of instruments that you would need to change your genetic code to play without laughing. The improbable ingredients of TGU's creative and third-world cuisine were offered in the gelatin of a pangermanism so natural that it seemed the next, inevitable step in human evolution. But it would have taken a ritual, a guiding thread, a popular demand, rather than a pop directive, to lead the TGU caravan into less generic territories. The Middle Eastern sensualities of Natacha Atlas's albums, here in her role as singer, the ambient excursions of Loop Guru, the folk appropriation of Deep Forest (brilliant in the choice of improbable melodies) and of Sacred Spirit (vulgar in its shameless commercial intent), all suggested some specialization of the prevailing pangermanism at the time.

To keep us on the edge of our seats, TGU would have needed to leap a wider chasm, to intoxicate with a stronger spice, to send a more daring, curious, versatile and probably hermaphroditic musical Frankenstein to greet us. It didn't happen, what a shame. We would have gladly talked about it.

They didn't manage to grow: we are left with these adolescent follies that didn't manage to envision a truly united world, not only in youth hostel encounters, but in marriages, enterprises, and lifestyles. I always tell my nephew: learn languages, go do your homework with that cute Chinese girl, and learn to eat with chopsticks!