Bandulu - Guidance

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Bandulu - Guidance

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Influenced by Detroit techno, New York electro and Chicago house, Bandulu additionally added tribal percussion, sampling and "real" instruments (guitars, drums, etc.) to their potential musical sources. Retrospectively, the trio have claimed their primary influence on forming in 1990 to be the creative decline of dance music at that time. "It was all Kylie Minogue, all pop music. So we just decided to each put £50 in a pot and go into a studio', claimed O'Connell. Bandulu's early singles, such as "Phaze-In-Version", were widely categorized within the fledgling Techno movement, though the execution was more intricate and more flexible than that of many of their peers who relied more on simple repetition. Their debut release was "Better Nation", followed by "Internal Ocean" at the end of 1992.

The members of the group also record under aliases such as ECC (Earth Coincidence Control), Sons Of The Subway, Koh Tao, Escobar, Shy Man and Thunderground. As the latter they include "fourth member" Lewis Keogh, Orb, The's resident DJ. With Bandulu he remixed the Orb's "U.F.Orb". Thunderground is also the name of the club night they host at London's Bass Clef venue. With a discernible debt to the experimental electronic music of Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson, Bandulu have nevertheless forged their own identity in the dance world. In the summer of 1994, they released another widely admired single, "Presence", followed by a second studio album. In 1995, they signed to Warner Brothers Records' subsidiary Blanco y Negro, for whom their debut release was the promotional-only EP Running Time. This was accompanied by live appearances at the Orbit Club's 5th Birthday party, the Omen in Germany and the Ministry Of Sound's celebratory night at Wembley Stadium. In March 1996, they released a further EP, Troubleshooter, which prefaced their major label debut, Cornerstone. This included nods to prevailing dance trends, such as jungle in "Selah" and hard house in "Jester". It was promoted with a series of live appearances.