Sands back with album no.7
Look Where I've Ended Up Now (Spring Records), Colum Sands By staff reporter - 01/12/09
Colum is a member of the famous Irish musical family, The Sands Family. A master singer-songwriter, he has been doing what he does and doing it well for over two decades.
On the County Down man’s new album, his seventh, "Look where I've ended up now", Sands draws inspiration across a vast, exotic landscape, drawing from a palette that takes in the sights, sounds, accents, stories and songs of Ireland to the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and North America.
Accompanied by fellow Sands Family members and some fine Irish musicians, Armenian Oud player Vasken Solakian and English accordion player Karen Tweed, Sands carries on the troubadour tradition, with lines like "Remote controllers all over the house, we have not the remotest control" or "rain coming in through the ceiling and the water bill's gone through the roof!" in that same blend of humour, critical insight and hope that have become his hallmark.
Sands says, "I love travelling and I always learn and write from the stories that people have to tell, I'm as happy sharing songs with ten people as I am with a thousand. It's not about numbers, it's about energy... songs have been a powerful means of communication for centuries and will always find their own way to fly without the hot air side of the music business."
Sands’ previous songs have been translated into German, Dutch, French and Hebrew and versions of his songs recorded by artists like Maddy Prior and June Tabor, Andy Irvine, Makem and Clancy, Mick Hanley, Roy Bailey, Enda Kenny and Flossie Malavialle, and there will surely be some jewels in here that will be borrowed by others in future.
From an old pair of hobnailed boots in a dark bedroom beside a dormant volcano in New Zealand, to a meeting in the Negev desert with a Bedouin activist struggling to hold onto his family's lands, remembering two painters in his home village of Rostrevor, this is a songwriter that celebrates life’s diversity in his own unique way.
Visit http://columsands.net for more. To buy a copy, visit www.copperplatemailorder.com or call 020 7585 0357.
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