This is Philip Jeck's fifth solo album for Touch. Sand was recorded live in Holland and England in 2006/2007 and edited in Liverpool in January, 2008 using Fidelity record players, Casio SK keyboards, a Behringer mixer and Sony mini-disc recorders. Following Philip Jeck's acclaimed collaboration with Gavin Bryars and Alter Ego on a new version of The Sinking of the Titanic, Sand is a set of seven new compositions that highlight Jeck's mastery of vinyl manipulation and personal and collective memories. During the past year, Jeck has refined and consolidated his unique sound, playing superb sets at the Faster Than Sound festival and at York Minster for Spire. Sand is at once elegiac, celebrational, mournful and uplifting. Those who have followed Jeck's development since his first release, Loopholes, will observe his return to the industrial textures that colored that collection, though here they are fused with his symphonic grace and continued development as a composer and live performer. Philip Jeck works with old records and record players salvaged from junk shops, turning them to his own purposes. He really does play them as musical instruments, creating an intensely personal language that evolves with each added part of a record. His is genuinely moving and transfixing music, where we hear the art, not the gimmick.