Sandals

London-based acid jazz quartet the Sandals only lasted for one album, but their ability to sign with a major label and score a pop hit with their single "Feet" was an early indication that trendy club music could comfortably move from the hipster fringes into the mainstream. Naturally, some despise them for this, but the group's two releases, the full-length Rite to Silence and the EP Cracked, are superb early-'90s dance records.



The roots of the Sandals are in the South London club scene of the mid-'80s. Ian Simmonds, Derek Delves, Will Blanchard, and John Harris were friends who met round the clubs, clothing stores, record stalls, and other focal points of the local nightlife. Delves ran a weekly club night called Violets that grew to include spoken word and performance art as well as painting and photography exhibits. In 1990, the foursome opened a stall called Rich and Strange in London's Trocadero, selling records, books, and clothes to like-minded hipsters. As they ran the shop, the foursome also began rehearing in its storage room, with Delves on lead vocals and percussion, Harris on various reed instruments, Simmonds on bass, and Blanchard on drums. (Interestingly, the group never had a full-time guitar or keyboard player, preferring to deputize friends on a song-by-song basis.)

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