DESCRIPTION:
White Sails are another new band joining the Fruits de Mer gang this August - a group combining musicians from the USA (Leigh Gregory) and Finland (Ville Vilpponen and his brother, Jaakko). Leigh and Ville are long-time members of the San Francisco music scene -- Leigh fronted Mellow Drunk for many years, while Ville is a member of the power-pop band The Bias; their first album was released last year on Ruska Records.

This single came about as a result of a few pints with Nick Leese from Heyday Mail Order -- a huge supporter of FdM since day one. I had an idea for an acoustic instrumental single, Nick told me about Leigh's background and gave me some of Leigh's solo instrumental recordings to listen to -- perfect!

Nick put me in touch with Leigh, I explained that I'd heard his solo guitar pieces and I was looking for someone who shared my love for a couple of very old acoustic instrumentals by....er....Black Sabbath....
long pause while Leigh tracked the songs in question down and came back with a, "Yes, let's do it!"

Many months later, and here we are -- two lovely Sabbath covers, played by Leigh and his new band While Sails, together with two original songs, one written by Leigh, the other by Ville. I hope you like it (this video introduces an excerpt from 'Laguna Sunrise')
more details at www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/whitesails.html

(video footage by Salem Jones)

PS. Why Sabbath, you might ask?

First of all, don't panic -- Fruits de Mer isn't drifting too far from its psychedelic routes (although, as Mae West once said, "I used to be Snow White, then I drifted", and I love their first five LPs). But, in my humble opinion, the original recordings of Laguna Sunrise and Fluff -- hidden away on 'Vol 4' and 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' respectively, are just SIMPLE, beautiful little instrumentals, whoever they're by (so much so, my missus and I had Fluff played at our wedding reception -- my idea, I'm afraid).

And White Sails interpret them so well, as well as delivering two subtle instrumentals of their own to make for a cracking four-track EP.