Strange Sensation
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Strange Sensation were Robert Plant's backing band, active from 2001 to 2007.
History
After 1993's Fate of Nations, Plant teamed up with former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page to form Page and Plant. The first album, No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, explored world music reinterpretations of Led Zeppelin songs, featuring a Moroccan string band and Egyptian orchestra supplementing a core group of rock and roll musicians. The duo's next album, Walking into Clarksdale and the subsequent tour were more traditional rock enterprises. Plant turned his attention to North African music, in particular Tuareg rock and Mali's desert music festivals.
In 2002, Plant returned with Dreamland, an album of blues and rock covers with the original Strange Sensation lineup, but credited as a Plant solo album.
The following release was 2003's Sixty Six to Timbuktu, a compilation that included his earliest solo recordings for CBS Records as a teenager in 1966, to his newest song, "Win My Train Fare Home (If I'm Lucky)", performed at Mali's Festival of the Desert with Justin Adams.
On 25 April 2005 was released Mighty ReArranger, the first album credited to Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation, a blend of world and Western music influences, with mystical, oblique and somewhat cynical references to religion and destiny.
On 16 September 2005, the band performed Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin songs at Soundstage Studios in Chicago, and the performance was broadcast in the 2006–2007 season of the PBS series Soundstage. This has also been released on DVD as Soundstage: Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation.
Lineup
Members
- Robert Plant – vocals
- Justin Adams – bendir, lap steel guitar, mandolin, tehardant, bass (Wayward Sheiks member and former collaborator with Jah Wobble, Tinariwen and Brian Eno)
- John Baggott – keyboards and synthesizer (jazz and trip hop artist; also a member of both Portishead's and Massive Attack's live bands)
- Billy Fuller – electric and stand-up bass (formerly of Fuzz Against Junk and currently a member of Beak, The Moles and Malakai; also contributed bass to the Massive Attack album Heligoland)
- Clive Deamer – drums, percussion, bendir (jazz-influenced player who has appeared on trip hop albums; also a member of Portishead's and Radiohead's live band)
- Liam "Skin" Tyson – acoustic, electric and lap steel guitars, bass (Britpop musician with Cast and Men from Mars)
Former members
- Charlie Jones – bassist (Page & Plant)
- Porl Thompson – multi-instrumentalist (Page & Plant, The Cure)