Listen to two songs from Sand Duney's debut album Plant Material Posted 05 Aug 2026
Plant Material is the first full-length album from Sand Duney, the project of songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jess Jones (Dear Nora, Jessica Dennison + Jones, Hot Gum, Cynthia Nelson Band). Plant Material builds on the sonic landscape and themes present in Sand Duney’s three song EP, The Julia Loop, released in 2021. Starting that year, Jones went back to school to study landscape design and sustainable gardening, which led to a radical shift in how she interacted with and understood the plant world—both its extreme vulnerabilities in the changing climate and its resiliencies—and how she understood herself, her partnership, and her community. The year she started school, she also married her wife. From the outset, “Out On A Dune” places us at the edge of the ocean, on the cusp of new and enduring love. Jones sings, “Feels like / A different sun / Has come up.”
Jess Jones played every instrument on Plant Material, including pedal steel, acoustic and electric guitar, bass, organ, and drums. She also recorded and mixed the record herself at home in Portland, OR and Missoula, MT. At first, Jones started experimenting with creating recordings that were one-take performances direct to 2-track reel-to-reel, often based around loops or underlying grooves. Her deep love of classic country and jazz recordings led her to think about how much those recordings relied on the magic of live performance. All the instrumental songs on Plant Material—“Spring” “Tilth” and “Mycelium”—are all direct to tape recordings, with no overdubs. Others, like “Jacaranda” “Deadnettle” and “Pages” have a bed of the original direct-to-tape grooves, but were then multi-tracked over. With this method, the songs on Plant Material achieve a feeling of spontaneous playing and the snapshot in time of live performance, but are also meticulously crafted and edited. The result is a record that moves and sounds like water through a deep canyon, every layer guiding us somewhere new.
Plant Material will be released September 4 by Anything Bagel, Bud Tapes & Orindal Records. Cassette tapes w/ downloads can be purchases direct from Orindal. Vinyl & standalone downloads can be purchased via Bandcamp.
Catch Sand Duney live!
Aug 13, 2026- Daisy Chain Fest, Missoula, MT
Sept 03, 2026- Seattle, WA @ House Show w/ Eli Moore (Lake), 129,600
Sept 04, 2026- Langley, WA @ Salad Days Records w/ Eli Moore (Lake), 129,600
Sept 05, 2026- Portland, OR @ Turn Turn Turn, w/ Cynthia Nelson Band, Dragging an Ox Through Water








Photo credit: Kyle Thomas










