UNITE Members and collaborators
Tim Whelan and Hamid Man Tu are both founding members of the multi- musical
collective Trans-Global Underground. Originating from the club scene in early 90s London, TGU
became as well known for their flamboyant live shows as for their early fusions of the different dance cultures in
the UK at that time. They branched out into production, notably for Natacha Atlas and Hakim, have worked regularly
as DJs and remixers and have kept up a virtually never ending touring schedule at the same time. For 'A Gathering
of Strangers' they stepped back from the live scene for a little after the release of the latest TGU release, a
compilation of the groups history entitled 'Run Devils and Demons.'
Visit the Trans-Global Underground website
If anyone could be said to have been leading the way in experimenting with new and contemporary settings of
traditional English songs, it would have to be Jim Moray. At the age of 21 Jim was hailed "…the greatest leap
forward in folk for 30 years" (Neil McCormack,The Daily Telegraph). Amongst other extravagant claims, his debut
album Sweet England was called "the most significant new development in English folk music since Fairport
Convention's Liege and Leif" (Nigel Williamson, Uncut). Critics worldwide fell over themselves to tip Moray for great things.
On 1st Feb 2010 it was announced that Jim Moray's fourth album In Modern History would be given away as a covermount CD with the June edition of Songlines Magazine, with a street date of April 30th 2010, the album will be available in a deluxe box set and standard editions from June 11th.
Visit Jim's website
Yanka Rupkina is one of Bulgaria's most famous folk singers. She was born near the Black Sea port
of Bourgas and the foot of the Strandja Mountains. She won first prize at the National Folk Music Festival in
1959 and became a soloist for the Bulgarian National Radio Music Ensemble. In the 1980s, Yanka Rupkina played a
major role in the growing popularity of Balkan music when, together with Stoyanka Boneva and Eva Georgieva, she
formed the Trio Bulgarka, a vocal group affiliated with La Mystere Des Voix Bulgares. In addition to recording
their own albums, Rupkina and Trio Bulgarka provided vocal harmonies for Kate Bush's albums, The Sensual World
and The Red Shoes. Rupkina subsequently performed as a solist for the national television and radio Bulgaria
group, the Balkana.
In 1994, Yanka decided on a solo career and started travelling the world, releasing a number of solo albums and reforming different versions of the Trio on occasion, encountering Transglobal Underground on one such occasion at a massive rave in Sofia, as a result of which she worked on their two subsequent albums.
After 50 years as a singer, Yanka Rupkina is still working and performing constantly, still with an openness to new ideas and collaborations that made her one of the first artists approached to contribute to A Gathering of Strangers.
Visit Yanka's Myspace
Martin Furey is a well established singer, musician and songwriter, born into one of Irelands
best known musical families. Growing up in Co. Waterford, he lived and breathed music, Irish music in particular,
taught to him by his father and uncles. He also learnt a great deal about Irish culture and its traditions through
his grandmother's regular story telling. He left home at 17 to study in Dublin, later moving to Edinburgh. In
Scotland his band Sam Harlet was formed, developed a huge following and played almost every venue in the highlands
and the lowlands of Scotland. Their music was largely influenced by the Pixies, Misfits and The Damned. Moving
back to Ireland in 1992 Martin and his sister Aine Furey, joined together to form their band Bohinta. They toured
Europe and the UK, and their album Excalibur went straight to number one in the French Album charts.
From 2001 to 2005 Martin also collaborated with the group "Mouth Music" and is featured on three of their albums.
2003 saw the release of Martin Furey's debut solo album, Howl. Recorded at the Scottish studio of Mouth Music's, Martin Swan, Howl merges the music of traditional music with ethnic and tribal rhythms. As described by Mojo Magazine... "Martin Furey writes oddly haunting songs, some he takes a further step into the ethereal. Its not easy - the songs don't leap up and bite you - but there's something about his anguished voice, the percussive edge and spookily sparse arrangements that gets under your skin".
More recently Martin became a member of The High Kings who released their first self-titled album in 2008.
Visit Martin's Myspace Visit The High Kings website
Village Kollektiv was formed in 2002 by members of few Polish folk/fushion groups: Warsaw
Village Band, Masala, Stara Lipa & Swoja Droga. Music generated by VK is Polish first fusion of electronic
sonances with live sound of original instruments and singing. Traditional musical roots together with the
computer score constitute an integrated circuit, creating new sound space, in which expression of the words of
the folk can take full shape. Musicians use traditional melodies originating from Polish Kurpie region and
collected from the people of the Bulgarian Shop region. They employ traditional singing techniques: throat
singing from Tuva and yoik of the Sami people. Original melodies also serve as an inspiration for individual
creative quests and instrumental improvisation.
Visit the Village Kollektiv website
We were lucky enough to be able to catch the attention of Stuart A. Staples during a short lull in
between the recording of Tinderstick’s most recent album, Falling Down a Mountain, and it’s release and
subsequent tour, which is still going on as this is being written. For anyone who doesn’t know much about them
here’s a quick extract from their biography: ‘Where their contemporaries were often direct and to the point,
Tindersticks were obtuse and leisurely, crafting dense, difficult songs layered with literary lyrics, intertwining
melodies, mumbling vocals, and gently melancholy orchestrations. Essentially, the group filtered the dark
romanticism of Leonard Cohen, Ian Curtis, and Scott Walker as filtered through the bizarre pop songcraft of
Lee Hazlewood and the aesthetics of indie rock. Though their music was far from casual listening, Tindersticks
gained a dedicated cult following in the mid-'90s, beginning with their eponymous 1993 debut album, which was
named Album of the Year by Melody Maker…’.
Tindersticks currently comprise Stuart Staples, Neil Fraser and David Boulter. As well as his work with Tindersticks, Stuart Staples has 2 solo albums to his name.
Visit Stuart's website
The Perunika Trio were formed in October 2005 by artistic director Eugenia Georgieva. The other two current
members are Dessislava Vasileva and Serbian-born Jasmina Stosic (replacing original members Victoria Mancheva and Victoria Evstatieva).
The trio incorporate Bulgarian, Macedonian and Russian traditional music and Orthodox chants into a broader Slavic
repertoire. Collaborations include work with Max Pashm Band ("Never Mind the Balkans") and Transglobal Underground ("UNITE").
Perunika's debut album INTRODUCING Perunika Trio was released worldwide by independent label World Music Network, on 17th March 2008 to a critical acclaim.
Visit the Perunika Trio Myspace
DJ Lepe is a member of the Greek-Hungarian electro-ethno band Balkan Fanatik, a Greek-Hungarian
electro-ethno band started in 2002 by Georgios Tzortzoglou (Yorgos) and Gábor Lepés (Lepe), injecting hip hop,
and electronic dance music into Balkan traditional sounds. Their debut album, Balkan Fanatik: Balkan Fanati was
released in 2003 and won the Album of the Year Award in Hungary. In 2004 the band received the Bezerédj Award
given by the Hungarian Cultural Ministry, for preserving the heritage of folk music.
On their second album Hungarikum they were joined by rapper Rise FM who worked on the Transglobal Underground
album Moonshout with members of TGU reciprocating on a couple of their tracks. The album also marked
the debut of Nori Kovacs, an established folk singer in her own right.
Balkan Fanatik's latest album, American Perestroika was released in 2009. The bands sound engineer and DJ, Lepe, produced ‘Immigrant Song’ on A Gathering of Strangers as well as mixing several tracks. Nori arrived at one session along with multi instrumentalist Ivan Barvacs, and left a huge amount of wonderful music behind them which appears at various times all over the album.
Nori Kovacs is a member of the Greek-Hungarian electro-ethno band Balkan Fanatik.
Visit Balkan Fanatiks website
"No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake, or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of
the words, foolproof and incapable of error."
Side9000 - Producer of the first Czech dubstep vinyl record 9000 Dubs EP. Head of the longest running Middle European strictly dubstep/grime label Owntempo Recordings, with more than 20 official Czech/Slovak releases during last 2 years. Besides his own releases is Side well known for his collaboration on last album of Czech alternative artist Monika Naceva, producing beats and remixes for Czech/Slovak hiphop artists. Heavily influenced by techno, dub and grime Side presents his point of view on modern dubstep.
Side9000 work with Owntempo Recodings a Czech Republic based dubstep/grime label founded in 2007 focusing on releasing interesting material from Czech and Slovak producers and fusing dubstep with techno, hip hop and experimental electronic music.
Visit Side9000's Myspace
Recycler's debut album, AlphaBhnagraPyschedelicFunkin was once memorably described as "the sound of
a woman enticing pigs into bed interspersed with blasts of acid bhangra and The Drummers Of Burundi taking a
wrong turn on the way to the WOMAD festival to end up playing a free rave in a park near Bracknell".
The Paris based ensemble are spoken of in terms of mixed awe and bewilderment by those who’ve encountered them
since then.
Releasing 2 albums on Nation Records in around the turn of the millennium, they bridged the gap between the glocbal fusionism of Transglobal Underground , Asian Dub Foundation and Fun-Da- Mental and the label's later hardcore industrial experimentation. In that period, they developed an underground cult reputation that never grew further due to the uncompromising nature of their beats and very rare live appearances. They've put our one album and an EP on Kube Records since then, and were brought onto this project due to their amazing ability to come up with something that makes no sense and get people moving to it, as in the soca beat they shoved onto the Balkan melodies of 'Human Atomic Clock'.
Visit Recycler's Myspace
Valravns blend of electronics, raw energy and Nordic folk roots has taken audiences as well as
critics by storm. With a base in the Nordic folk scene and with a strong heritage of Danish and Faroese traditional
songs, they've experimented widely with electronics and all manner of unlikely instruments, and moved on to more
self written contemporary material. TGU toured with them in 2008 and they were an ideal team to bring in on for
U.N.I.T.E.
Visit Valravn's website
A quote from the Autopsia and Achtar album Radical Machines, Night Landscapes.
'Thanatographical machines, machines that describe death in very different regions and under very different social masks; they are ideal machines, but they are neither oneric, symbolic nor imaginary, they represent the mechanisms by which real consciousness functions, ie the consciousness of reality, they "make" reality and it is by them that this very same reality, reduced to its ideal pattern or model is annihilated.'
Visit the Myspace
Bulgarian musicians Alexander and Apostol were recommended by the Perunkia Trio
and travelled to Sofia for a memorable session where they were confronted by a load of atonal drones, Recyclers
breakbeat soca grooves and all manner of half realised ideas, all of which they dealt with with amazing sang froid.
