Sandwell District's End Beginnings - the groups first music since Juan Mendez (Silent Servant) tragically passed away in January 2024 - is a majestic coming together of cinematic techno and mind-bending dancefloor dynamism. The album marries Drexciya's idea of techno being an act of seditionary innovation to a sense of unbridled fun, an imperative that means an awful lot to O'Connor. "Having a good time is pretty much why you get into it in the first place," he notes wisely. "And it is fun. I think we feel a lot more fortunate now, especially with what happened with Juan. We're grateful." End Beginnings is also a moving requiem. At the beginning of 2024, Mendez tragically died just as things were moving in the right direction for the collective. His stunning artwork and visuals were always a central pillar of Sandwell District. He was working on a piece of art entitled "End Beginnings" that was mooted to be the album cover. That work was never finished, but O'Connor and Sumner took the title to honor their friend's contribution. It remains a fitting tribute to the stop-start nature of this rebel alliance.

As described in our Privacy Policy, we collect personal information from your interactions with us and our website, including through cookies and similar technologies. We may also share this personal information with third parties, including advertising partners. We do this in order to show you ads on other websites that are more relevant to your interests and for other reasons outlined in our privacy policy.

Sharing of personal information for targeted advertising based on your interaction on different websites may be considered "sales", "sharing", or "targeted advertising" under certain U.S. state privacy laws. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to opt out of these activities. If you would like to exercise this opt-out right, please follow the instructions below.

If you visit our website with the Global Privacy Control opt-out preference signal enabled, depending on where you are, we will treat this as a request to opt-out of activity that may be considered a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information or other uses that may be considered targeted advertising for the device and browser you used to visit our website.