Sandra Lockwood

Country of origin:

Canada

Type of music generally:

Strange evocative/eclectic, ethereal, experimental pop

Status:

Most recent release, Shell (1994)

See also:

Her home page has disappeared from the ether

Comparisons:

Never for Ever- or The Dreaming-era Kate Bush, Emily Bezar, Kristeen Young. (Neile)

Like a Vancouver Island Kate Bush. (jmgurley@drizzle.com)

Covers/own material:

own

General comments:

Strange, surreal and wonderful, Sandra Lockwood plays an evocative piano and has an odd voice. She's intense and playful, but serious. Damn, she's good. She falls easily in what every reviewer will call Kate Bush-like music. She plays piano. She has a high, slightly raspy voice. But the music is a little more odd rhythmically, in an almost jazzy way, and she actually reminds me more of Emily Bezar or Kristeen Young. She's a varied and good songwriter and has a wonderful sense of catchy piano bits and choruses and can do the lazy & beautiful thing, too. (Neile)

Recommended first album:

Shell

Recordings:

Shell (1994)

Shell

Release info:

1994—independent release

Availability:

Long out of print. Check used stores in Vancouver and Victoria, B.C., Canada

Ecto priority:

High for lovers of ethereal, experimental pop. (Neile)

Group members:

Sandra Lockwood—piano, vocals

Guest artists:

Rick May, Steve Horak, Daniel Lapp, Mark Critchley, Calvin Dick, Scott White, Davinder Singh Hundel, Eric Proulx, Kinnie Starr, and Scott Henderson.

Produced by:

Scott Henderson and Sandra Lockwood

Comments:

A knockout of an album. I found this almost by mistake while browsing a used record store in Victoria. I knew on first listen that I had to buy it, and have since bought other copies new to give to friends to make up for buying that first one used. That was well over a year ago, and the album has aged well. There's only one song I'd rather not listen to over and over again the way I do the others. The sound is varied, the influences classical and pop and surreal. The lyrics are intelligent but perhaps a little mysterious. Songs like "Bath," "Fatal Love," "New River," and "Night Shift" just won't get old. Though recorded in a home studio, the sound is rich and beautifully complicated. The art is gorgeous, too. (Neile)

I do like it, a lot! Beautiful, and fierce, too, just brilliant. There's something oddly appealing in that insanely, almost messily hectic song "Bath" that makes me feel really funny. (jsorva@niksula.hut.fi)

I think tonight was the first time I really listened to this album, I mean really *listened* to it. Different things kept occurring to me, and I don't know how to describe the music, except that the whole album seems like a work of art to me. A soundscape of music and words. And her voice seems like a bird sometimes (I mean that in a positive way). And there is also all this gutsiness and rawness in what she sings and in the music, so there is sweetness and softness and hardness and power, and that mix is very interesting. A wonderfully indescribably wonderful album. (JoAnn Whetsell)

Further info:

Apparently Sandra Lockwood is a performance artist and appears in Vancouver and Victoria, BC. She also has a first book of poems out from a small press in Victoria.