The Shifting Sands are Mike McLeod (guitar, vocals), Tom Bell (bass) and Jake
Langley
(drums). Despite also running the busy Chick’s Hotel live music venue at Port
Chalmers the
band also undertook a 2014 US West Coast tour supporting David Kilgour &
The Heavy
Eights, with whom they share bass player Tom Bell. DK in turn added his cosmic
guitar
energy to two tracks on the album.The music on “Cosmic Radio Station” was
first beamed
into the Pacific ether from a woolshed and a tumbledown house over the hill from
Port
Chalmers near Dunedin during a period of heightened aurora activity in the south
caused by
cosmic rays from solar flares. The eye-popping sleeve, by renowned Port Chalmers
artist Jim
Cooper, gives some idea of the psych-dealing within. “Cosmic Radio Station”
is an album
dripping sundazed melody through a shifting haze of fuzzy, chiming guitars,
shimmering
strings, and vocal harmonies. The cosmic radio station is on air. Tune in…
turn on… pop out.