Born in Pontypridd, South Wales to a musical family, Thighpaulsandra developed an interest in modern classical and electronic music at an early age. Whilst still in school he formed an avant-garde rock group incorporating influences from his admiration for experimental music pioneers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Feeling constrained by the British educational establishment he left school and spent several years working first as a psychiatric nurse and then a piano technician.
One of his many clients was former The Teardrop Explodes frontman Julian Cope who, after learning of their mutual appreciation of Krautrock and electronics, invited him to join his current group as keyboard player. Between 1994 and 2002 they recorded many albums together including ‘Autogeddon’ and ‘Interpreter’, and the duo also produced two albums together as glam-electronic outfit Queen Elizabeth.
Thighpaulsandra joined Coil in the last 90s and his arrival marked the beginning of Coil’s most productive period, with Thighpaulsandra contributing to the vast majority of their releases from 1999’s ‘Astral Disaster’ to 2010’s DVD box set ‘Colour Sound Oblivion’.
From 2000, encouraged by Balance and Christopherson, Thighpaulsandra began to release his own music starting with the ‘Some Head EP’ to which Balance contributed vocals. This was followed by a series of six full-length albums, including ‘I, Thighpaulsandra’, ‘Double Vulgar’ and ‘The Lepore Extrusion’.
From 1997 to 2008 Thighpaulsandra performed as keyboard player in space rock band Spiritualized, contributing to the albums Live at the Royal Albert Hall’, ‘Let it Come Down’, ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Songs in A&E’, and also performed engineering duties on 2012’s ‘Sweet Heart Sweet Light’.
He joined fellow Coil alumni Cyclobe for their first live performance at the Donau Festival in Krems, Austria in April of 2007, and also contributed to their 2010 album ‘Wounded Galaxies Tap At The Window’. After working with former Cocteau Twins singer Elizabeth Fraser on a recording project for several years, Thighpaulsandra joined her on stage as part of her band for a series of highly acclaimed solo live shows. Much of 2013 saw Thighpaulsandra touring with friends Wire performing in the UK and Europe.
After an eight-year hiatus from solo work, Thighpaulsandra returned in September 2015 with the ambitious triple-vinyl ‘The Golden Communion’, which was released to critical acclaim. In 2016 and 2017 respectively he began recording and touring with Massimo Pupillo (of Italian band Zu) as Uruk, and Valentina Magaletti, Graham Lewis & Matthew Sims as UUUU.
More recently Thighpaulsandra has been working with Daniel O’Sullivan and Tim Burgess.
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