Doing the jig in a trance

FLICKERING LIGHTS, merciless clobbering of drums, transient sounds, and then...a sudden burst of dementia, that Music Academy on a regular kutcheri diet, might have never witnessed before.

Yes, clubbed by a UFO (Unconventional Fusion Orchestra), the audience on Tuesday, went into a trance, prancing to the electronic rhythmic sounds of Transglobal Underground, a clan of people ranging from ``Budapest to Bengal, wandering in and out when required and desired''.

After making Calcutta ``shake the groovy thing'', Godfrey Duncan (Vocals and Congo) made some provocative statements here too.''

But it was Doreen Webster's call that got the ``groovy thing'' going. ``There's space around if you want to dance''.

One man sitting in the front row burst into a jig, then a thirty- something woman, then another, and in less than two minutes, there were people of all-age groups and nationalities on the aisle floor.

The numbers were unheard of, the sounds very familiar. Bhangra beats pumped up the adrenaline, soon sounds of jungle, hip-hop, dance rhythms, traditional eastern sounds-sitar, played by Sheema Mukherjee, the funky flings at the tabla by the energetic Gurjit Sirha, who swaggered around the stage clubbing the dhol as well.

Throughout the one and a half hour show, Timothy Whelan kept the tempo going literally through the keyboard, generating chorus sounds, Hamilton Lee thrashed the drums and David Hewitt chipped in with additional percussion, bursting into hip-hop and rap vocals now and then.

In the end, it was ``improvised world trance music'' as the band describe their music. On a tour promoting their fourth album `Rejoice Rejoice', the band now moves to Mumbai, performing under the British Council banner.

By Sudhish Kamath

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