SANDUNES

Shares track “Shadow ft. Half Waif”
Announces EP ‘Nowhere to Stand’ out June 25th on !K7

India-based musician Sandunes has announced details of her new EP ‘Nowhere To Stand’ which is set for release on June 25th via !K7. Along with the announcement, she has shared the EP’s lead single “Shadow”, which features vocals from Half Waif.
 
‘Nowhere to Stand’ is Sanaya Ardeshir’s sixth solo EP and the farthest-reaching leap yet into Sandunes’ growing collaborative universe. Four unique and diverse vocalists feature on four tracks – each driven and overseen by Ardeshir’s powerful musicianship and lyricism towards a newfound pop-inspired direction. 
 
The first track to be unveiled sees Sandunes’ vibrant electronics teamed with evocative vocals from Hudson Valley-based musician Nandi Rose, who plays under the name Half Waif. Sandunes comments on the track saying: “Nandi has been a dear friend for a few years and her work stands out to me for having a very authentic voice, always steeped in deep emotions. She came up with the melody and wrote about her lived experiences, I got goosebumps when I heard what she’d done with it.”
 
Rose adds: “This collaboration with Sandunes came about at the beginning of the pandemic, when we were all looking for new creative toeholds. Sanaya and I have been friends for many years, and I’m a huge fan of her music and the sounds she creates, so when she approached me to sing on a track she’d made, I jumped at the opportunity. I loved how her instrumental moved from more glittering, atmospheric verse sounds to a slick, cool chorus feel, so my first idea was to use a denser melody in the first section while leaving the chorus emptier, letting the ear dig deeper into the groove. Lyrically, I was exploring the idea that when you’re confronted with stillness, all the old memories and feelings of shame around the past start to flood in. And when that happens, what you really need to do in order to let it all go is to move. Movement is so cathartic, and I think Sanaya captures that perfectly in her arrangement.”

Melody embellishes the ambiance from the get-go. A trance-like structure of delicate and enticing electronic elements emits into the creative soundscape before the intensity ramps up and the textures alter to bring this ardent and angular infliction. The high reaching and standout vocal notes consume the audience, whilst this dexterous instrumentation and experimental structure builds up power and adds this addictive and dynamic transition to its outlook, the vocal melodies provide this emotional attachment to the creation.

Bringing the softer tones to weave against the crunchy synth notes soaring throughout, by uniting the soft and the harsh we find this sublime middle ground where the focus fixates on the lyrics. The collaboration from Half Waif brings this crucial influence to the notes, vocal tones fed into the flow and lifted by each harmony. “Shadow” will leave a remarkable impression, when the notes fade out we find ourselves needing to emerge into the composition once more. A powerful ensemble.

‘Nowhere To Stand’ follows 2020’s Spare Some Time, the collaborative electronic jazz crossover Spaven x Sandunes and 2019’s 11:11. The new EP centres thematically on the journey of acquiring a relationship with transience and change – a process interspersed with dense weavings of fear, discomfort, longing, love, embrace and celebration. Over the year since her last release, Sanaya’s own life has seen this wave wash over it; a drastic change in lifestyle, personal and professional decision-making, and refined focus on being free, connected to the earth, and on releasing control of the ways the world perceives her.

‘Nowhere to Stand’ track list:
1.  A Little While Ft. Landslands
2. Shadow ft. Half Waif
3. Nowhere To Stand Ft. Sid Sriram
4. Ghosts Ft. Ramya Pothuri
 

https://www.sandunesmusic.com