(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Among the many bands who attempted to revive the pan-ethnic and psychedelic legacy of the Third Ear Band was the English trio Tuu, formed by percussionist Martin Franklin, flautist Richard Clare, and keyboardist Mykl O'Dempsey (formerly of the Magic Mushroom Band). Franklin and O'Dempsey began performing at multimedia events during the 1980s. Franklin later joined Clare and recorded several compositions for electronics and flute, which were only released years later on Invocation (Hic Sunt Leones, 1995).

The three joined forces to create a sound loosely inspired by new age music, particularly the pieces of Steve Roach. The tracks on One Thousand Years (SDV, 1992) immerse the strikes of gongs in digital sludge, producing effects halfway between the psychedelic and the arcane. The guiding principle of the entire work is a highly intricate mannerism. The emphasis is almost entirely on crystalline, pure, nearly sacred sounds. Each track is “sculpted” rather than played, with meticulous, almost obsessive attention to detail. Dramatic development is reduced to the juxtaposition and layering of timbres. Rhythm no longer exists; the music dissolves at an excruciatingly slow pace.

Franklin also recorded an album with Michael Northam, An Opening Of Earth (SDV, 1993), containing a long jam of live electronic music.

All Our Ancestors (Waveform, 1995), with Rebecca Lublinski replacing Clare on flute, expands the percussion arsenal (clay pots, tambourines, Tibetan bells, bansuri flutes, in addition to a battery of synthesizers, loops, and samplers) and achieves technologically brighter results. Rainfall perfects their practice of spiritual improvisation: the muffled timbre of the flute intones a sweet melody, but the piece is defined by a slow trance of sparkling sounds arranged with a clarity and severity worthy of a Zen garden. Roles are reversed in Triple Gem Of Wisdom, when the fairy-like flute melodies take precedence over the left-field bubbling of objects. Traces of Jon Hassell’s dreamlike world music appear in Stillpoint In Motion, while hints of Harold Budd’s minimalist filigree emerge in Illumination.
The greatest sense of movement occurs in the slow, martial ceremony of All Our Ancestors. Shiva Descending is wrapped in a dark rumble which, combined with the tinkle of bells, creates a liturgical intensity, yet the mass never begins—only indecipherable noises and faint flute notes alternate. Tuu seem to succeed best the further they move away from the easy allure of the exotic and draw closer to the austerity of chamber music.
These are all tricks that new age music had discovered twenty years earlier and that countless musicians have exploited to exhaustion, but Tuu’s fans remain unaware. As with new age, depending on taste, this is either sublime music or simply nerve-wracking.

Franklin took a break and, together with flautist Nick Parkin and percussionist Eddy Sayer of Lights In A Fat City, gave life to the project Stillpoint, which released Maps Without Edges (Beyond, 1996 – City Of Tribes, 1998).

Always melodious and elegant, weightless, in slow evolution, the music of Mesh (Hearts Of Space, 1997) thrives on its very quality of not being, not becoming, not ending. It is pure inspiration, left to drift in the ether of musical ideas.
The protagonists of the compositions are almost always the percussion, which guide and condition the course of the music. When they take over, the atmosphere becomes more ethnic, particularly Indian, as in Migration. The title track plunges into a primitive landscape, between jungle beats (always somewhat Indian-tinged) and gentle electronic whispers. When they take on the subtler, psychological role of counterpoint to the electronics, the most evocative ambient frescoes emerge, such as Kalpa Taru, a canvas of suspended drones embroidered with a deep conch-shell hum and seductive Tibetan bells, or Stone To Sand, a trance of water sounds, ghostly voices, and veils of strings.
The most original aspect of their sound, however, is the flute. The instrument can be the voice in the desert, a faint starlight, or a whisper of wind, thereby complementing the anguished scores of the electronics with a human and positive element. Crack Between The Worlds is essentially a long improvised flute solo, with electronics and percussion as accompaniment, and it is also the track most reminiscent of Roach’s desert music. In the spectral landscape of Four Pillars, the flute rises like a breeze among the columns of an ancient temple.
The sophistication of the sound has few rivals in Europe, apart from Vidna Obmana and Lightwave. Yet doubts remain about a work based exclusively on the allure of timbres. These pieces lack real substance. This music lacks a real message. It is the baroque of old electronic music, not the romanticism of the new chamber music.

The group had been reduced to the duo of Martin Franklin and Mykl O'Dempsey, and half of the tracks are in fact by Franklin alone.

Terma (Hearts Of Space, 1998) is actually a collaboration between Martin Franklin alone (the founder of TUU) and flautist Nick Parkin. The album contains seven suites inspired by Tibetan Buddhism. Franklin lays down a soft carpet of ethnic percussion while Parkin lets the ethereal cries of his flute soar. The project carefully avoids indulging in recreational trance, and only becomes cloying when it attempts to extract Tibetan ethnic folklore (Djinn, Serpent Fire).
The duo achieves particularly evocative effects in Water Memory, when the flute echoes chase from all directions, creating a disturbing sense of alienation, and in Ghosts In The Landscape, where electronics and percussion paint nightmare panoramas in the psychocromatic style of Steve Roach. Magus lingers at the intersection of the fatalistic invocation of Native American flautists and the agonizing calls of Jon Hassell. The album is rounded out by the soundscapes of Terma and Plateau, desolate stretches of subtle, unsettling noises, making for a varied and seductive work.

The limited-edition micro-album The Frozen Lands (Amplexus, 1999) takes its name from the eponymous suite composed for an art exhibition, and adds Silent Writing and Gangiri. Martin Franklin plays and manipulates metallic instruments. The indulgent pseudo-ambient drone-based music is a far cry from TUU's fantastic merry-go-rounds.