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Recording the good stuff

If you own a steel pan recording produced after 1985, chances are it was recorded by Simeon L. Sandiford of Sanch Electronix. The small Trinidadian company records, produces, and distributes Caribbean music, with a particular emphasis on the steel pan, and states on its web site that it aims to be "a catalyst for ensuring that the steel pan becomes internationally recognised as a mainstream musical instrument and that steelband music is universally accepted as the preferred vehicle for relaxation, rehabilitation therapy, and spiritual well-being in a modern world."

That's a huge goal. But unlike some others with big missions, Sandiford actually seems to have some idea of how he's going to achieve it.

While others in the steel pan sphere obsess about things like patents and standardisation, Sandiford has concerned himself in recent years with finding the best way of capturing and reproducing the nuances produced by Trinidad and Tobago's national instrument. He's clocked hundreds of hours in panyards during the Carnival season, experimenting with microphone placement, speakers, and digital technologies, and also documenting his findings in articles like the "The Third Umpire's Criteria for Judging Panorama" and "The Symphonic Soundstage". The company has also designed and trademarked the PanWagon, an amplified steel pan rack which Sandiford says could make it possible for steel orchestras to return to the streets during Carnival and compete with those deafening sound systems.

The organisation that would eventually evolve into Sanch was registered in 1979 as a manufacturer of speakers and distributor and retailer of high-end electronic equipment. After a series of rapid currency devaluations made that business uneconomical, however, Sandiford - who has a background in physics and electronics - decided to get into the recording business. "The mandate was that whatever we did had to have potential for earning foreign exchange," he says.

He did his first recording in 1984: Exodus Steel Orchestra's Lucy in the Savannah. Thinking it "sounded good", he went at it again in 1986, recording Phase II Pan Groove and All Stars and releasing the material on cassette. One day, on a whim, he sent one of his steel pan recordings to the California-based classical music label Delos, whose products he carried in his store. That resulted in the 14-album Caribbean Carnival Series, a set of Sanch recordings re-packaged and distributed under the Delos banner. By 1995, however, some changes in ownership at Delos had forced the label to refocus their energies on their classical catalogue. Sandiford was left with a backlog of steel pan recordings. "We decided, look, you know what? We better start Sanch."

Had Sanch been a label devoted to recording commercial music like soca or reggae, the rest might have been history. But the very nature of what the label does, and the way they do it, has meant they've gone about their business quietly - and patiently. "I'm never in a hurry to do stuff," says Sandiford.

The Sanch catalogue now comprises some 50 CDs, including a smattering of non-steel-pan recordings from groups like the Marionettes Chorale, the Signal Hill Folk Choir, and the Lara Brothers parang ensemble - they even have a CD of music by the Benedictine monks of Trinidad's Mount St Benedict. In addition to steel pan recordings of calypso, including some newly re-mastered recordings in Microsoft's HDCD format, Sanch also has a good selection of pan jazz, the most recent of which is their outstanding 2003 release Reid, Wright and Be Happy, which the company has submitted for Grammy Awards consideration.

"You're fighting piracy," Sandiford says. "And you cannot win that battle. What you have to do is look for customers who want the genuine article, and who will support you because they are also into the high-end thing."

Sanch's products, as a result, have also distinguished themselves through excellent presentation: high-quality packaging and cover art (usually created by Sandiford's artistic collaborator Ken Scott), and, perhaps most importantly, good technical liner notes, in most cases translated into more than one language. For Sanch and Sandiford, longevity is the key, in business, as in life, as in art. "How do I know a good steel pan arrangement?" says Sandiford. "That I can remember it. That 10, 15 years later I can hum some bars of it. Then I know it's good stuff."

By Georgia Popplewell
Caribbean Beat Magazine March-April 2004