Womad Shop

Burning Mask

Neil Sparkes And The Last Tribe

"Neil Sparkes, Renaissance dubster, poet and painter does not stop moving. His restless journey started the moment he found himself onstage poeticising over the dub alongside Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jalal and Jean Binta Breeze. Since then there's been Real World Recording Weeks, Transglobal Underground, the Temple of Sound project, solo albums like the resplendent Cuban dub vision of 'Burning Mask'....and that's not even most of it."" - Max Reinhardt, Straight No Chaser.

"A musical education" - DJ Pathaan, DJ Magazine

"Neil Sparkes helped turn a generation of Indie kids on to African rhythms and Western electronica. On "Burning Mask" he continues the theme adding extra dub and Latin American rhythms into the mix. Veering from party-all-night salsa and frantic jungle, to the jazzier and moodier dub of everything else, all the while driven by Sparkes's controlled, but urgent percussion." - The Independent

"Given Sparkes background as vocalist and percussionist with TGU, it's hardly surprising that his debut album is rather spectacular. Neil Sparkes has developed a sound which contains Dub, Caribbean flavours, jazz, breakbeat, poetry and Afro-Cuban percussion." Lulu Le Vay, Jockey Slut

".....a delicious organic-meets-electronic jambalaya with hearty infusions of dub, downtempo jazz and spoken word" - Andrew Duke, In The Mix

"Neil Sparkes, a mainstay of the legendary Transglobal Underground and co-founder, with that group's Count Dubulah, of Temple of Sound, makes his solo bow with this fascinating and richly textured recording, which seems to bring together every musical tradition that has ever influenced him and stir them all together into a thick stew of heavyweight beats and dubwise production strategies. The recurring musical themes are those of reggae and Cuban percussion; bask in the glow of the percolating rhythms and spacious ambience. The sinuous, jazzy groove of "The Sun Also Rises" bumps up nicely against the splashy King Tubby/Black Ark ambience of "Touch a Body"." - All Music Guide