Sandra MacBeth, Conjugal Scene

I first came across the singer and songwriter Sandra Mac Beth listening to her song ‘8 Ball’ on the ‘Uncompressed World Vol. II - Audiophile female voices’ sampler. The song immediately stuck a cord with me, because of the high quality of its recording, its warm and insistent piano tones, and because of Sandra’s voice that startled me in its rawness, clarity, and warmth. The song did not appear to have have any of the smothering effects so common to modern recordings and, as such, was very pleasing to my ears.

I set out to find out more about the artist, because I was hoping to listen to more of her songs. Yet, for some reason, none of my usual sources of music purchasing and streaming produced the desired result. I also watched some YouTube clips of Sandra’s, but since these were lacking the desired quality and even material, I decided to write her an e-mail and ask her to send me a copy of the album that ‘8 Ball’ was originally on.

Sandra wrote back to inform me that her album ‘Conjugal Scene’ included ‘8-Ball’ and was available on Apple Music—which I have not subscribed to—and that she could send me a copy of the album and a more recent long player on CD from Scotland, to which I happily consented. The little envelope holding the CD and long player arrived just a few days later, and I was happy to find that about half of the tracks are of similar quality and attraction as the song that had led me to my search.

There is a marked difference between the earlier tracks, which are of average recording quality and the tracks around ‘8 Ball’ which sonically really open up into the room and manage to carve out that purity in the voice that is so hard to come by. This has lead me to the idea that I would ask her for an interview with me on Music & Talk. Quite audacious at this point in time. Obviously, much more needs to be done, before I am ready and able to provide the setting online, but…I have already started ‘exploring’ the possibility. And that is the motto of this page.