Studio-Live track "Standing Man" now available

We are thrilled that the fabulous Standing Man track by Pia de Keyser, done in collaboration with Saharawi artists in the camps, is finally ready to be heard by the world. 

You can now listen to a 30 second teaser of the track below. The Standing Man track has been kindly donated to Sandblast by Pia, to help us with our on-going fundraising efforts for Studio-Live.

If you would like to download the the entire 6-minute-long song, we ask that you please make a donation for it, so we can support locally-run recording studios to become up and running in two of the Saharawi refugee camps in Boujdour and Smara in the next 12 months. These studios will be run entirely by our Studio-Live-trained sound engineers. Hurray! We don't want to tell you how much to donate; that will be for you to decide. What we are sure of is you will love what you hear! 

To donate: 
http://campaign.justgiving.com/charity/sandblast/studiolivelocal

Please send us an email to info@sandblast-arts.org after you've made the donation and we'll send you the full track.

The story of the Standing Man recording:
Composed and sung by the super-talented Pia de Keyser, this song refers to the Moroccan soldiers that have been standing on the 2700km-long military wall in Western Sahara for over 30 years. It was recorded in the refugee camps in February 2015 by local sound engineer trainee, Shaia Wali, at the Saharawi National Music School in a Studio-Live equipped studio. Shaia was trained over a year period in a Studio-Live programme of sound-recording workshops delivered by the tireless and dedicated Sara McGuinness, who teaches at the London College of Music. Shaia was assisted by Rasha Shaheen, a music teacher visiting the camps for the first time, who also participated in Run the Sahara in 2015.  See below the wonderfully quirky fast-paced video she did of the week-long recording session with Pia. 

The artistic collaboration that took place with local artists in the camps for the Standing Man was a truly inspiring and magical experience. During the week, Pia recorded with 9 artists who transformed the song into a moving intercultural epic. Seriously, we've never heard anything like it!

The post-production experience to edit, mix and masterise the track has been equally inspiring. Pia was able to get the whole-hearted support of generous and talented people back in London to turn it into a cracking finished product. We are crazy about the Standing Man track but we would love to know what you think. So please leave your comments after you've downloaded it and had a listen!