The True Spirit
is a loose, freewheeling fraternity of like-minded free spirits with a shared love of psychedelic rock and roots music. Their irreverent experimentalism has fleshed out Hugo Race's music onstage in and in studio for over twenty years. Originally from Melbourne, in early 1989 Hugo moved base to Berlin, and Normal Records (Germany) released his first True Spirit album “Rue Morgue Blues” as the Wall fell. So began two decades based in Europe and the production of 14 Hugo Race & True Spirit albums, the latest of which “53rd State” was released in Australia (Spooky Records) and Europe (Glitterhouse Records) in 2008 to rave reviews.

“Urban dreamscapes… elegant trip-hop… ambient noise psychedelia… raw cosmic blues… live garage rock… cinematic melancholia, new wave nostalgia, essential songwriting, post-rock minimalism…” – all these descriptions have been applied to Hugo’s work, best summarised as:

“Hugo Race is a psychedelic prophet, a 360 degree artist who makes compromises with nobody.” (Debaser, Italy, 2005)

“Both alone with a guitar or with his True Spirit, Hugo has toured Europe repeatedly, performing on a vast trajectory from the UK to Greece and was literally one of the first western “underground” acts performing inside the ex- eastern bloc European territories after the fall of the Wall. He has followed a personal musical vision in a series of mutating line-ups that have fused the boundaries between the "primal" (roots) blues and raw electronica - described by London Sounds as "night music of the soul", and by Melody Maker as "industrial-trance-blues". “ (Ludger Kordt, KGB, Germany)

“The stripped to the bone sound of the True Spirit exercises a fascination not exactly reassuring, yet magnetic in its evocation of obscure dangers. Music from the wild side of the street – or better, like walking blind in a war-zone…” (- Gianluca Testani, Mucchio Selvaggio)

“Hugo Race remains one of the great unsung talents of Australian music, and with ‘The Gold Street Sessions’, the leathery old wolf of the nightmare psycho blues returns… The Gold Street Sessions requires a darkened room and an open bottle. Doubt not – this is a dangerous little record from a songwriter who is only ever the real deal” (- Jonathon Alley, MAG Australia)