Colum is a meber of The Sands Family, one of Ireland's favourite musical families. Colum is a master singe songwriter who has plied his trade all over the world for the past 20 years. His songs are much sough after and have been covered by several high profile singers.

An old pair of hobnailed boots in a dark bedroom beside a dormant volcano in New Zealand, a meeting in the Negev desert with a Bedouin activist struggling to hold onto his family's lands, remembering two painters in his home village of Rostrevor, a late night childhood story from the daughter of a famous coal miner in the North East of England, wrestling with the idea of formal and informal words for "you" in the German language, raising a voice against noise pollution, recalling the smell of freshly baked bread, Colum Sands is a songwriter who works from a broad palette and sings of the colours, the senses, the accents and the language of life.

On his latest collection "Look where I've ended up now" Sands finds inspiration across that same vast landscape which has welcomed his songs and stories over the past thirty years - from Ireland to the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and North America.

In the company of fellow Sands Family members and some of Ireland's finest musicians, the exotic flavours of Armenian Oud player Vasken Solakian and the outstanding English accordion player Karen Tweed, the County Down songwriter comes up with lines like "Remote controllers all over the house, we have not the remotest control" or "rain coming in through the ceiling and the water bill's gone through the roof!" to carry the tradition of the troubadour into the 21st century with the blend of humour, critical insight and optimism which has become his hallmark.

Sands himself says, "I love travelling and I always learn and write from the stories that people have to tell, I'm as happy sharing songs with ten people as I am with a thousand. It's not about numbers, it's about energy ..songs have been a powerful means of communication for centuries and will always find their own way to fly without the hot air side of the music business."

With "Look where I've ended up now" Colum Sands sends a seventh bagful of songs out into the world to find their own feet, "through hedges and ditches, in search of the reason of rhyme."

With previous songs translated into German, Dutch, French and Hebrew and cover versions recorded by artistes like Maddy Prior and June Tabor, Andy Irvine, Makem and Clancy, Mick Hanley, Roy Bailey, Enda Kenny and Flossie Malavialle, who knows where they might end up!

We at Copperplate are delighted to be associated with this release and proud to have this title on our roster. We will be doing all we can to help this brilliant release achieve its full

potential and will be supporting it with a full-scale promotional mail out to media and retail.

He is a consumate performer who has built up a large following in the UK, via his regular tours. News of his new tour will delight his many fans in the UK.

Press Reviews

Colum Sands is inspired by people. The songs on his seventh solo album show this more clearly than ever, and the result is another engaging celebration of our better selves. Some of the people are from his home base of Rostrevor in County Down, but more are met on his travels. He embraces the life of a folksong troubadour in the title track, and takes us on to people met and stories heard in Israel, New Zealand, Germany, and the north east of England.

Beyond The Frame remembers two brothers from Rostrevor, artists and signwriters: In freedom's name beneath the sun, some close one eye to aim a gun. / Some open both, see far and wide, all colours living side by side. Rostrevor is just a few miles from Warrenpoint, by the way. Song For Nuri is inspired by a Bedouin activist persecuted by the Israeli authorities. Fred Jordan's Boots celebrates the life of the Shropshire farm labourer and tradition bearer who I was lucky enough to hear sing at the National Folk Festival: Fred bequeathed his hobnailed boots to his friend Roger Giles, and Colum stayed at Roger's house while touring in New Zealand. From The Darkness Of the Mine came from talking to Doreen Henderson, the daughter of Jack Elliot, one of the Elliots of Birtley: her peace activism is seen as a continuation of the mineworkers' solidarity embodied by her father. Lighter songs include Du You Sie, with delightful word play on German forms of address, and Too Loud, with a polite moan about noise pollution. Is it all too nice, too relentlessly uplifting? Maybe the occasional spurt of toxic bile (such as Richard Thompson, for instance, is capable of) wouldn't go amiss. But Colum's songwriting flows from his nature, experience and beliefs, and I shouldn't wish it any other way.

Colum plays guitar, double bass, concertina and mandolin, while accompanists include Brendan Monaghan on whistle, Karen Tweed on accordion and Ursula Byrne on fiddle. Ursula closes two of the songs with tunes: The Connaught Man's Rambles and, most fittingly, The Reconciliation Reel.

Postscript. Listening to these songs again, a few days later, the lack of bile seems fine. After I wrote the first draft of this review I turned the radio on