Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart, Shriekback, Trans-Global Underground: WOMAD@HELSINKI


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Artist Statement:


    These bands will play in the WOMAD@Helsinki Festival, focused on ethno/techno at the start of ISEA94.

    Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart                                                                                                                                                                            1978 saw the release of Public Image Limited’s eponymous single. At eighteen years of age Jah Wobble’s (John Wordle) heavy bass sound was established in the first ten seconds of the track. Having left P.I.L , Wobble’s collaborations mixed shortwave radio collage, heavy dance grooves, Islamic and African sounds with trance-like atmosphere. His music was the forerunner of today’s “World” hybrids. Released in May 1994, Jah Wobble’s  Invaders of the Heart’s new album, “Take me to God” is Wobble’s most ambitious  album featuring a stunning array of artists, always underscored by that fundamental bass sound. The name Invaders of the Heart comes from ancient troupes of dancers and musicians who could literally invade the hearts of tired travellers who came to them, using music in its original form as a healing source.

    Shriekback
    Shriekback started life in London in the year 1981 and received much critical acclaim for their innovative smeltdown of dance rhythms, reggae sound perspectives and bizarre wordplay. In 88 Shriekback collapsed for a while coming back together in 92 to record “Sacred City”. Their new formation being a rich loam in which the Shriek aesthetic could flourish and sprout new cultural hybrids. This 1994 band hailed by many as Shriekback’s best incarnation yet is an entirely unique live event. The music is groove-based feral post-post modern rock’n’roll, Cyber-Folk , featuring an unprecedented collision of such instruments as Saz, Harming tree, Cumbus, Didgeridoo and Reco-reco – “post apocalyptic music that you could play after the apocalypse.”

    Trans-Global Underground
    Formed in April 1991 as a DJ collective, fusing world music into underground dance beats and rhythms. Since formation, the band’s debut single, “Temple Head” has become a club anthem world over. Although not wishing to be linked too directly, they appear to be leading a dance-music movement of “ethnotechno”– the fusion of global sounds, beats and rhythms into contemporary club sounds. The band core is Mantu, Count Dubulah, Attiah Ahllan and Natacha Atlas – (Belgian singer/songstress who sings in Arabic, Hindi, French & Spanish), live they are joined by the vibrant and colorful line-up of T.U.U.P (The Unprecedented Unorthodox Preacher) – African storyteller and rapper, Neil Sparkes – beat-poet vocalist and Larry Whelan, a clarinet/flute wizard. – “…this London-based crew of multi-national magpies sound like a mighty disco remix of the United Nations”.

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