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Sandra Bell

Biography

Sandra Bell is a New Zealand experimental artist born in a redundant gold mining town on the west coast of the South Island. She began writing and playing music in her early teens, an impulse shaped in part by a move to an isolated pine forest in the central North Island. As she has described it, the remoteness gave her space to develop: the nearest shop was sixteen miles away. An early inspiration came from seeing the travelling band BLERTA perform on the domain in Taupo. She was the first person to busk in her small town, before later travelling and joining a performance poetry collective in London. She returned to Auckland in the early 1980s, and it was from that point that she became more serious about music.

“We shifted to an isolated pine forest, central North Island, 16 miles from the nearest shop, the isolation meant I had a lot of time to dream and create.”

Sandra Bell, via AudioCulture

Bell’s recording debut came in 1984 with Two Metallic Hearts, a collection of original songs performed live with Kim Blackburn at that year’s Sweetwaters Festival. Released on cassette through Industrial Tapes, it was followed in 1986 by Blackbirds, her vinyl debut and her first release under her name alone. Issued on Volcanic Productions, Blackbirds featured only women musicians and record sleeves bearing hand-screened artwork. The album was built largely around Bell’s vocals and guitar, and included an early version of ‘Industrial Night’, a song she would later revisit.

After a decade in Auckland, Bell moved to Dunedin, where in December 1988 she recorded four songs with Greg Fox on bass and engineering, sharing keyboard duties with him. The resulting cassette, Underground, was released by Whiplash Productions. A period of reduced musical activity followed before she reconnected with Peter Jefferies. With Jefferies on drums, David Mitchell on guitar, and Kathy Bull on bass, Bell re-recorded ‘Industrial Night’ in 1990, and this song alongside ‘Lost Train’ — on which she played everything herself — appeared on the Belgian compilation Killing Capitalism With Kindness, issued by Turbulence Records.

“I knew I was one of them.”

Sandra Bell, on seeing BLERTA perform, via AudioCulture

Those recordings became the foundation for Dreams of Falling, initially released as a cassette on Xpressway in 1991, then issued on CD and LP by Turbulence Records the following year — the first time a Sandra Bell collection appeared in all three formats. Xpressway’s marketing of the cassette in the US helped open overseas markets, and the Turbulence release sold well in Europe and as an import in the US. The album marked a significant step forward in her development as a recording artist.

Bell continued releasing music through the 1990s and beyond, with records appearing on labels including Zabriskie Point, Turbulence Records, and VHF Records. Her 1998 CD City of Sorrows appeared on VHF Records. Later releases included White Nights and Project Aqua’s Got To Go/The Fatal Shore on Powertool Records in 2008, and Aureole on Thokei Tapes in 2015. Collaborator Thomthom Geigenschrey has been a current member, with connections across a wide range of international and New Zealand acts including Faust, The Renderers, Giant Sand, Bill Direen, Bats, and Hitmen 3.

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