A new development within the high spin Nilsson-Strutinsky formalism is presented and applied to certain sd-shell nuclei. The previous method of calculating potentialenergy surfaces as a function of angular momentum using interpolated spin values is not satisfactory when studying the individual bands for these light nuclei. In the present research, manyparticle manyhole excitations are considered in the rotating system at each deformation in order to calculate the lowest energy at each spin. It is thus possible to calculate not only yrast states but also excited configurations. Potentialenergy surfaces in the ( E , T)-plane (with each grid point minimized with respect to E J are calculated at various values of spin, parity and signature. Special attention is paid to the problem of signature splitting ("decoupled bands") and in some cases the two signatures are found to correspond to different shape changes of the nucleus with increasing spin. Detailed investigations of the nuclei z0,z2Ne, 24Mg, "A1 and '*Si are presented.