Underground music by Various Artists on the United World Underground album

My song that was included on the album is entitled Real Love and Communication and it opens with a chanted version of the Druid's oath which goes:" We swear by peace and love to stand, heart to heart and hand in hand, mark, oh Spirit, and hear us now, confirming this our sacred vow.

This song in an earlier version that was performed in a reggae or ska style had been on my best-selling cassette album Dive In Deep that had also been released on Mick's label but this was a very different way of doing the song. It had an electronic backing and lead guitar by the late Ned Zero and featured the incredible backing vocals of Diva Den, a singer from Cardiff. It actually closes the album but I am including here as first because, after all, it is my song!

Dive In Deep , by the way, has been repackaged and remastered for CD and will be available in the near future from Alan Craw's DMMG Records.

The first song on UWU is Lunar Drive by the Greek band Fight Amnesia. Yanis Kalifatidis, whose band this is, also used to edit and publish the Fight Amnesia fanzine.

Next up is a song entitled Masterplace by Dark Star, a one-man band who hailed from Freiburg in Germany and produced their own distinctive brand of space rock. Wolfgang Reffert, who wrote and recorded this track, also hosted the Pleasuredome show on Radio Dreyeckland.

Perspective by EYE is the next song and is by an Australian act. Blatant Propagandawas an online magazine produced by the man behind EYE, and who was based in Canberra.

The next track is entitled Schlaflos and is by a German band called Earth. The song's title means "Sleepless."

Grass Harp were another act from Germany included on the UWU album. The song is called Vertigo .

From Lisbon in Portugal comes Ras.Al.Ghul with a song entitled Qual . Apparently the band take their name from a comic.

Huddersfield in Yorkshire was the home of Idiom, who contribute Joch McGregor. This song is the work of Chris Goddard and Rachel Trimmer.

Blacklight Braille are an American collective of singers and musicians from Ohio, who have been responsible for a huge catalogue of work mixing folk, blues, traditional music and rock with poetry and story-telling. This very eclectic band bring their song Bottle Green Waters to the album. Frontman for the band was the legendary Owen Knight who Mick Magic described as "a hugely admirable eccentric and the hippest septuagenarian on the planet."

Back to Germany we go to meet Lord Litter, a singer-songwriter, rock musician, writer and radio show host from Berlin, who became a legend in the underground music scene, and rightly so. Lord Litter released countless cassettes of his own songs as well as compilations, and he regularly hosted Radio Marabu shows that featured unsigned acts and included music that was out on cassettes only. His song is called Love Freak .

The next song is Pissing Diamonds by The Stinking Badger of Java. This act doesn't however come from the Indonesian island but hail from Victoria in Australia.

Neo have contributed Master and Slave to the album and it features the operatic voice of Brian John Doran, who hails from Windsor in the UK and was formerly with the band Operattack.

T.M.R give us Sister Jodi. This song features Marc Bell of The Thamesmead Rollers and Mike Westergaard, formerly of The Blessing.

Cosmic Dance Society are Rasmi Nithokar and Caroline Frerichs and are another German act on this compilation. Their song is entitled Guardian Angel .

The 14th track on UWU is by Love in a Plaque, a band from Stourbridge in the West Midlands. Their song is simply called Freak .

The album has a total of 15 of the best songs by a selection of acts from around the world. I am not sure what they are all doing now but the music carries on on this excellent slab of underground rock music from a decade or so back.