A Gathering of Strangers (2010)
15 tracks, 70 minutes
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UNITE were a one-album (and I think one-tour) project that came into being, said what they wanted to say and faded away into their constituent parts again. Their only-slightly-awkward backronym Urban Native Integrated Traditions of Europe gives you some idea of what they’re about. Recorded across seven European capital cities and featuring urban folk musicians from even more, this album is the sound of a Europe under one banner, making brilliant music all together, making exciting new styles while all retaining their own unique identities.
That’s right: it’s a Brexit protest! Except, it was released six years before anyone realised it was much of a problem at all and when Nigel Fridge was just a fringe nutter instead of an apparently mainstream nutter. Not that there weren’t already concerning signs: the whole reason this album was made was to show the foolishness of xenophobia and to highlight in its own small way the values of intercultural exchange and bridge building.
The project itself was spearheaded by Tim Whelan and Hamid Mantu, the core duo behind Transglobal Underground. Although the album ostensibly revolves around its guest stars and the collaborations thereof, for my money, it’s clearly at its strongest musically when they let the TGU-iness to flow forth and build up vast layers of the dubtronica in and throughout all the other influences, like some mad lasagne. Whether it’s Bulgarian bagpipes and choirs, Czech dubstep, Victorian music hall songs or whatever the next artist brings, it’s all held firmly in place as an important element of the overall sound. I think the best run to demonstrate this is the three tracks of ‘Karanka’, ‘Van Dieman’s Land’ and ‘Immigrant Song’, with that middle track being the one I come back to the most. Based on an old British transportation ballad, provided here by Irish musician Martin Furey, it also includes half-sung half-rapped Mandinka from Czech-Senegalese singer Bourama Badji and Polish throat-singing from Bart Pałyga. It’s like some strange alternate universe where the concept behind the Afro Celt Sound System bore fruit with TGU at the helm instead, and it’s full of that slight darkness that TGU are brilliant at curating.
There are so many different influences going on here that it’s not possible to describe it all together, but that’s not really the point. It’s all good stuff and it’s the plurality and heterogeneity that makes it so – it revels in it. The saddest thing is that this album, the UNITE project and the messages at the heart of both have only become more relevant over the past nine years, rather than an artefact of their own time. I hope it can start becoming less relevant – if no less banging – as soon as possible.
