Sand in My Shoe [Coloured Vinyl]

The main difference between Sand in My Shoe and the prior LP by Kath Bloom and Loren Connors, 1982's Sing the Children Over, is that this time around Bloom wrote everything, whereas she wrote less than half the material on the former record. Otherwise, it's much the same blend of Bloom's trembling voice and guilelessly emotional folk ditties, the acoustic folk guitar backing accented by Connors' odd bent blues-folk notes. It's truly a case of the total being greater than the sum of the parts, as on its own, Bloom's compositions might seem gushingly sentimental, and Connors' guitar work roving experimentalism in search of meaningful content. Together, those elements form something that's hardly comparable to anything of its era or any other, though it's weird enough to guarantee that it's never going to find anything beyond a cult audience. Both Sand in My Shoe and Sing the Children Over were combined onto one two-CD reissue by Chapter Music in 2008, with the addition of three non-LP bonus tracks from the early '80s. ~ Richie Unterberger