there's a new SAND album???!!! (the brit one. not the 70's kraut one or the 70's u.s. one)

http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=431

"the group is also down with the Russian avant-garde, having recently provided a live score for Andrei Tarkovsky’s three-hour opus, Stalker."

Sand's second album "Still Born Alive" is now released. Sand's music mixes Cinematic/Electronic/ Dance/Techno/Funk elements to create their own sound.

Sand musically walk the line between different worlds. They have played with, on the one hand, dance artists such as Robert Hood, Patrick Pulsinger, Andy Weatherall and Carl Craig and on the other hand with groups such as God Speed You Black Emperor, Squarepusher , Add N to X and ESG.

Sand play diverse live events. They have performed on stage with the Karas Dance Company in Tokyo (where they played onstage with, amongst other things, goats, chickens, cows and rabbits!), and live at the Vienna Opera House with techno ace Patrick Pulsinger.

Sand's music has been described as cinematic musical soundscapes. They are currently performing at a number of Cinemas in the UK (see flyer) with a series of interactive films by independent film-makers commisioned for this event. Film-makers include Chris Newby, Alison Murray and Clio Barnard.

Sand band members are Tim Wright, John Richards, Hilary Jeffrey, Neil Griffith and Rowan Oliver. The group was formed in 1998 and are based in Birmingham. Their record releases are as follows:

"Hello Mrs Apple" 1998 (Satellite Records)12"
"Displane" 1999 (Satellite Records)12"
"Beautiful People Are Evil" 2000 (Satellite Records)CD
"Bromide Fist" 2001 (Satellite Records)12"
"Still Born Alive" Jan 2002 (Satellite Records)CD

Good, good...

"Not to be confused with the 70s German electronic outfit of the same name, UK quintet Sand offer up a new genre; hardcore jazz metal electronica. Or something like that. Originally an offshoot of programmer Tim Wright's Germ project with trombonist Hilary Jeffrey, Sand's diverse influences and activities (members of the band are involved in noisy dubcore outfit Scorn, jazz and electroacoustic composition) are greater than the sum of their parts.

Still Born Alive is a dense and occasionally pretty scary brew of bass heavy grooves, noise and jazz improv; imagine Dark Magus era Miles Davis played by Black Sabbath and mixed by Conny Plank. Like Can, Sand strip funk of its booty shaking joy and reduce it to pure pulse, an unstoppable journey to nowhere in particular.

Rowan Oliver's drums suggest a meeting of Al Foster and Jaki Liebezeit while John Richards' electric bass is a malevolent, fuzzed monster. Occasionally (as on the superbly intense "Airlock"), his melodic springy double bass adds extra texture, while fretless bass whoops punctuate the downtempo throb of "Body in the River". Throughout Jeffrey's fluid, treated trombone is the ghost in the machine, carving out forlorn melodics, angry blurtings or fogbanks of long delayed tones. His solo on the last part of "Bromide Fist" is a bit of a peach and makes Sand's connection with the more adventurous end of electric jazz (Miles, Mwandishi et al) explicit.

Wright's electronics are subtle yet crucial; gassy hisses, distended synth bass, jet engine howl and metallic bursts drift in and out, while his screamed distorted vocal on the closing hardcore blast of "Rubber Eye" is suitably deranged. Guitarist Neil Griffiths provides a raw, scabrous energy; vicious wah'ed chords or anguished feedback swoops. Intense, brutish and short (would that more cds were less than 40 minutes long), Still Born Alive leaves you exhausted yet wanting more. Play loud and often."

whut?

i always wanted to hear these dudes but could never find their albums.

It just as often sounds like a jazzed-up version of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult. Throbbing, claustrophobic, "rock" oriented dancefloor material. In fact, my only real objection to the record is that it sounds more like a DJ tool than the product of a proper band. (Whatever the fuck that means.)

I really, really like this record. But what I'm hearing has more to do with Spaceways (live trip-hop from the mid-90s), pseudo-industrial club rock and some imaginary dancefloor version of the Butthole Surfers than with the Can, Sabbath, Miles, Swans references that keep cropping up in reviews.

That part, I totally agree with. I'm talking more about the structure of the music. The overall feel does have a lot in common with Miles, Sab, et al.

Senior Lecturer in Music, Technology and Innovation - de montfort university, in Leicester
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/humanities/mcp/staff/jrich.jsp

and..Sand include 3 graduates of music from York University
http://music.york.ac.uk/news/2001_2002/article_023.shtml
Sand band members include York Music graduates John Richards, Hilary Jeffery and Rowan Oliver

all i can say is still born alive is worth yer dough. if you like, um, music.

Their tracks on there are pretty good.

Oh no, don't bother, it's fucking rubbish, thanks again Mr. Stapleton for leading me up yet another blind alley!

it's not stapleton's fault you've got shitty taste.

still love this album so much. someone should reissue it. they were ahead of their time or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcblH3i4ggI

some of the still born alive album sounds like dubstep circa 2002. wait, was there dubstep in 2002? anyway, souljazz should put this out again.

also, still true that when i play this in the store everyone has to ask me what it is. it really is one of those albums.

Found this very album in Amoeba clearance the other month! The Dalston Shroud that is.

how is it? i never did get a copy.

Let me sit down with it tonight after work and I'll say.

okay, i'll wait here.