:: Sand feat. Kim Fowley and Roy Swedeen - The West Is Best

Sand feat. Kim Fowley and Roy Swedeen

Kim Fowley, whose credits include recordings with John Lennon and KISS, to Add N to X has returned, with his first recordings in decades. A serendipitous journey through ‘desert/surf pop’ guitar twung country, it’s oddly appealing journey though. Despite the sludge of opening track ‘Underground Garage’ and the sometimes-sluggish nature of Cowley’s approach, he has correlated a slinky collection of material here. Not content with just engineering, mixing and recording these tracks in his own studio, producing or co-producing, writing or co-writing every track on the album, Roy Swedeen also plays guitars, bass and drums on all of them. Cowley co-wrote/produced and sings on nine out of twelve of these, the exceptions are three instrumentals (‘Renegade’, ‘Guitar Mirage’ and ‘Blue Surf’) composed, performed and produced entirely by Swedeen.
Which, depending upon your individual tastes, are the three tracks that along with Swedeen’s, the cut and dry, Santa Fe, echo/delay/ chorus styled shimmers of Swedeen’s guitar playing, save “The West Is Best” from sliding a dash into the apathetic. Cowley doesn’t dissapoint, he does a fair job too, it’s just that there’s only so much of the low-pitched, lethargic, rustic drawl of tracks like “Trailer Parks After Dark” you can take. It’s on songs like ‘Desert Town’ that the collaboration pays off, Cowley’s world worn, spoken word, dialogue skilfully countered by Swedeen’s sharp angled guitar weaving.