Selections Circa 1990-2000

Selections is, according to the sleeve notes, "a crumpled cluster of sling slams from the last decade of the last century hereby displayed in a chronological order going backwards mostly."

Starting then with a brace of tunes from last year's formidable Chore Of Enchantment album, we find the long running trio having pretty much perfected their dust-encrusted craft, a kind of spaghetti-western slouch towards Nashville Babylon that calls to mind any amount of alt country clones but also more wild card elements like David Byrne's hook-ups with Texan Terry Allen.

One-time contemporaries of heart-of-darklands rockers like Thin White Rope, Green On Red and The Dream Syndicate, GS's stranded, abandoned sound has been fairly accurately quantified as "desert rock" (the original line-up was christened Giant Sandworms, while offshoots include the Sidewinders and Calexico for god's sake).

Certainly few tunes can evoke the cabin-fevered feeling of living in the arsehole of nowhere quite so accurately as 'Stuck' and the title track from 1992's Centre Of The Universe opus. Similarly, tailor-cut covers like Neil Young's 'Music Arcade' cattle-brand them as the band who should've soundtracked Oliver Stone's loco one-horse-town noir U-Turn.

There's a host of cameos here, from Bostonian brats Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield to rodeo sweethearts Victoria and Lucinda Williams, but the most significant walk-on part in the Sand's 20-year odyssey has been from gamin cowgal Lisa Germano.

Their collaborative take on Lee Hazelwood's 'Sand', an embryonic version of the finest track from the OP8 Slush record, smoulders over a twangy Johnny Cash guitar and suspicious tex-mex sway, while the sluggish waltz of 'Remain Distorted' seeks to place the listener in the position of eavesdropping on sweet nothings between Sailor and Lula. It's a marriage made in Barstow.

Dim lights, thick smoke and quiet, quiet music. I like it.