Sandwell District – End Beginnings
Minimalist, industrial-tinged techno isn’t typically an abundant source of emotional nourishment. Though its spectrum of feeling ranges from fear to ecstasy, its comfort zone is at its borders, provoking primal terror sweats or inviting long nights of intoxicated bliss. UK collective Sandwell District aren’t necessarily any different in this regard, but their debut album and, until now, sole album, 2010’s Feed-Forward, is a masterful and highly influential landmark of frosty and spectral futuristic pulses and low-simmering menace. Building on a template carved into cold steel by the likes of Speedy J and Surgeon before them, Sandwell District—through their recorded output as well as their label and individual members’ projects, including Regis and Function—built their own stunning cybernetic vision.
For years, however, the Sandwell District name had gone dormant, the collective’s two primary figures—David Sumner (Function) and Regis (Karl O’Connor)—suggesting the project had run its course back in 2013, though the two would occasionally perform an unannounced set together, as they did at Movement in 2014. But for the better part of a decade, Sandwell District had essentially come to an end, Function and Regis—as well as collaborators Female (Peter Sutton) and Silent Servant (Juan Mendez)—each focused on their own solo material as well as even harsher and heavier offshoots like O’Connor and Surgeon’s British Murder Boys. But over the past few years, Sumner and O’Connor grieved the loss of friends, first in 2022 with the death of Mark Lanegan, a perhaps unlikely cheerleader of Sandwell District who had encouraged O’Connor to revive the project. And then in 2024, with the death of collaborator Mendez, one of the architects of the group’s debut and a fellow traveler in dark, atmospheric beat spaces.
End Beginnings, Sandwell District’s first new LP in 15 years, is in part a product of that grieving, their form of techno aesthetically and emotionally suited for touching darkness in ways that dance music typically can’t or simply won’t. But more than that, and in large part in reaction to that grief, it’s a reunion record made with the best of intentions—to enjoy the ride. In a statement ahead of the album’s release, O’Connor reiterated that, whatever tensions arose between them in the interim, making music with Sumner is fun, “Having a good time is pretty much why you get into it in the first place.” And indeed, End Beginnings, for all its eerie atmosphere and undeniable darkness, is as purely enjoyable as techno gets.
Sandwell District’s hourlong sophomore odyssey thaws slowly, the opening pulses of “Dreaming” trickling slowly until a roaring fire begins beneath, its stark chill erupting into a hypnotic dancefloor siren song. “Self-initiate” is as immersive as it is thrilling, a rich soundbath galloping toward oblivion. Frantic layers of drums nearly obscure a light mist of synth on the deeply physical “Will You Be Safe?”, while “Least Travelled” reverses that tack, deep throbs of bass and subtle loops of guitar splashing over a more restrained rhythm. And on the old-school acid techno revivalism of “Hidden” and “Citrinitas Acid,” Sumner and O’Connor seem to embrace their most hedonistic and nostalgic impulses, celebrating the roots of their sound while coloring it with their own unique metallic hues.
Though Sandwell District in their current iteration are a duo, they’re in the presence of a number of collaborators here, including Mika Hallbäck, Mønic, Rivet, Rrose and Sarah Wreath. But the presence of an old friend also looms over the album’s final song, “The Silent Servant,” a gorgeously sparse, aesthetically refined closing dirge named in honor of their late friend and former member. The album’s title, likewise, was also inspired by a work of visual art that Mendez had been working on before his death, one which he never finished. Details and moments of vulnerability like these serve as a reminder of the human element that’s essential to music so intertwined with technology. However perilous the journey and dark its domain, it’s the spirit of community, collaboration and camaraderie that resonates the deepest on End Beginnings.
Label: The Point of Departure/PIAS
Year: 2025
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