Neil Sparkes is a musician, music producer, poet and visual artist.

Founder member of Temple of Sound and formerly Transglobal Underground, Sparkes has performed on international stages across the globe on the frontline of world music, dance and dub. 

Vocalist and percussionist with Transglobal Underground with whom he toured the World from 1992 to 1996; Neil Sparkes appeared on all of TGU's commercially successful albums for Nation Records and Sony. 

Sparkes has worked with Peter Gabriel, Natacha Atlas, The Stranglers, Jah Wobble, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Los De Abajo, Batucada Sound Machine, Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali (grandnephews of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan), Adrian Sherwood, Hossam Ramzy, Zion Train and Linton Kwesi Johnson amongst many others. 

Neil's music has been used by fashion designers Ferragamo and Valentino for their catwalk shows and by advertisers such as Pilot Pens and Adobe. Neil has contributed towards many feature film soundtracks and has composed and produced incidental music for features on BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky Sports as well as numerous licenses around the globe. 

Neil Sparkes literary work includes several collections of poetry published by Billy Childish's Hangman Books. As a poet he has read and performed widely in the UK, Europe and Internationally at clubs, festivals, colleges and universities as well as numerous appearances on radio and television.
Neil's long term collaboration with legendary UK saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith is featured on the CD and book "Grandchildren of Albion" (New Departures). Sparkes has developed a series of unique collaborations with Jazz and World musicians alongside his poetry and performances.

"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



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