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Sandrine : Trigger
By Hector The Rock Dog
With a lyric like 'with my finger on the trigger I'm thinking of you' you are bound to get attention. Welcome to the debut album from Sandrine.
The title track to 'Trigger' has been one of the most voted for songs on commercial radio over the last month. People are talking about Sandrine.
Sandrine can sing, she can write and she can perform. What is most pleasing about hearing someone like Sandrine is knowing that if she entered Australian Idol she wouldn't have a chance at winning because she isn't a karaoke singer. This lady is one huge talent.
Her songs come from the heart. "I'm crying from the shower, I've been in here for hours, and there's nothing you can say, to chase these fears away" she confides in 'Shower'. Sandrine takes honesty and raw emotion and puts them into song. "Nobody loves you, nobody cares" she states on 'Bruises'. "You've got bruises on the inside" she sings putting into words what many people feel.
It doesn't matter if Sandrine is playing with a band or alone with an acoustic guitar. Her music is captivating. Each song entices you to listen to the next. 'Trigger' is a complete album with beautiful melodies such as 'Nowhere', pop sensibility like 'Living In Sin' and variety in sound such as the subtle dance beat of 'Schoolgirl'.
The music of Jewel may come to mind when you hear Sandrine but both artists have individuality. 'Dissection' is a sombre production against an interesting effect distorting her voice and 'TV' again focuses back to melody with a compelling lyric and hooky chorus. "I want to be on TV with people watching me" she sings, giving us a hint of the ego seeping through.
'Fall', 'How Hard' and 'Beautifully Ugly' one after another all give a different flavour of the talents of Sandrine.
Australia is producing some great talent lately with real artists. Sandrine is one of them.
Track Listing
1 Trigger
2 Shower
3 Habit
4 Bruises
5 Nowhere
6 Living in Sin
7 Schoolgirl
8 Dissection
9 TV
10 Fall
11 How Hard
12 Beautifully Ugly
- Coca - Cola Music
Who are your 3-5 favourite Australian artists?
1. Little Birdy
2. Sleepy Jackson
3. Nick Cave
4. Jet
5. Machine Translations
6. Gerling
What are your 3-5 most played Australian releases? Why?
1. Little Birdy EP - because someone writing songs they enjoy without trying to cater to commercial radio is something I enjoy
2. Sarah Mitchell 'The Grey Room' - I love the dark and moving quality of her voice
3. Tex Perkins - He's got a sexy voice!
What do you think is the most influential Australian music release and why?
How the hell would I know? I don't feel qualified to say - it's such a personal thing
Which Australian performer (past or present) would you most like to work with?
I'd love to do a little collaboration with Gerling.
Describe your most memorable Australian music moment?
It was at a Cramps concert at the Playroom on the Gold Coast with men in catsuits and stilettos playing punk rockabilly. There was a moment as I was standing between the foldback stacks when a guy was singing a song about having sex with an alien and he was humping the foldback speaker over where I was standing and his pants split - it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen!
What are your three favourite music websites?
Mine, mine and mine.
What, where and when was the first local gig you attended?
I can't remember - mustn't have been that good. I’ve been going to gigs forever.
Can you tell a story behind your latest release?
'Trigger' was the last single I had out, it was the song from the album through which I poured most of my sexuality.
What is the most important issue facing Australian music?
I think Australian Music industry is starting to do great things with local acts and artists and I see that as a strong positive, while there will always be issues, I feel things are moving in the right direction with acts getting the support they need.
- Australian Music Online
Sydney singer-songwriter Sandrine, a rare talent, announced her arrival with the quietly seductive debut single which gives this album its title. Here she reveals a strong melodic sensibility and lyrically her grasp of a quirky yet effective metaphore is refreshing. Check out 'Nowhere' for her pragmatic grip on the vagarities of being a "buzz" artist championed by the powers-that-be - a cautionary tale for any aspiring chart-topper. But her true power emerges in her vocals. She achieves emotional impact with breathy, sweet tones which she charges with barely-restrained venom when the subject calls for it. A gorgeous intro from an artist with talent to burn. - Kathy McCabe - SLM
Discography
LP1 - Trigger
Released in 2003 by Sony Music, Australia
Track Listing
1 Trigger
2 Shower
3 Habit
4 Bruises
5 Nowhere
6 Living in Sin
7 Schoolgirl
8 Dissection
9 TV
10 Fall
11 How Hard
12 Beautifully Ugly
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Sandrine - Bio
“The good songs are the ones that bypass your mind, the whole cerebral experience, and pours literally from your heart. It will start building in me and I’ll feel quite emotional, like something is in there. So I’ll go sit at the piano or grab my guitar and generally it will just be like, whoosh. When a good one comes out, you’ve got no idea what that feels like.”
Sandrine is a genuinely unique talent. However, to simply put it like that goes nowhere near explaining the extraordinary route that has seen her get to this point where she has written such an original, eloquent and emotional collection of songs.
“I wasn’t one of those people who had dreams of being famous when I was older,” Sandrine explains. “It’s not the singing-with-a-hairbrush-in-front-of-the-mirror-type story that you hear a lot. It wasn’t like that for me. I just started writing my songs really early, just as my personal thing, and started playing them to people and it’s just been the natural thing to carry on.”
If Sandrine’s smooth sound and style feel as if they have come from a time that has been lost, that’s not too far off, as Sandrine grew up without access to popular music until she was well into her teens.
Born in Katoomba in NSW’s Blue Mountains, Sandrine’s family moved to Griffith and then onto New Zealand where Sandrine’s grew up in a travelling family that had very little exposure to much of the outside world.
Sandrine had started playing piano at the tender age of six and immediately started making up her own tunes. By the time her father, who was a pastor, had built his own permanent parish, Sandrine would write a new piece of music each week and perform it as part of the service.
”Music from the outside world, “secular music”, as my dad used to call it, was banned,” says Sandrine. “I’d only hear a radio over at friends’ places.
“So I had already developed my style and flavour by the time I actually heard all this amazing music out there. And I think it’s a good thing in a way because I’ve not been heavily influenced by a particular artist.”
When Sandrine was 16, the family decided it was time to head back to their hometown of Katoomba. Sandrine wasn’t happy as by that time she had put together a band, was touring around New Zealand, playing her own music, having the time of her life.
After putting out her debut album ‘Trigger’ in 2003, which received critical acclaim throughout Australia, Sandrine has since been concentrating on writing songs for her next album.
“Sydney singer/writer Sandrine is a rare talent. Trigger is a gorgeous intro from an artist with talent to burn.” – Kathy McCabe - Daily Telegraph, Sydney 2003
“It’s a record of heavy on the type of ethereal, down hearted pop that has made stars out of Beth Orten and Everything But The Girl.” – Rolling Stone 2003
The new record promises to be the most extraordinary, dreamy, beautiful, original and intense collection of songs that you will hear all year.
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