The Strange Sensation is Robert Plant's backing band, formed during his nine-year break from solo recording. 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, the first full-length Strange Sensation album was released: Mighty ReArranger, a blend of world and Western music influences, with mystical, oblique and somewhat cynical references to religion and destiny. The album also contains some subtle political statements.
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.
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