Swmmngpl - Love Songs/Like a Child [Review]

*** This blog post first appeared in  TSMM's October 4th Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***

About Swmmngpl

I’m somewhat confused. I reviewed Swimming Pool’s Line Cuts EP last year, but they’ve suddenly switched to the barely-disguised Swmmngpl moniker for this EP, two months after releasing a new single as Swimming Pool. Answers on a postcard, please.

This somewhat sulky-looking pair, Klyl Shifroni and Seraina Fässler, are a talented young duo based between The Hague and Zürich. They met during their Sonology studies, and whilst their peers were off chattering excitedly about Harry Styles, they geeked out over alternative music, and their interest in coding languages, digital synthesis and electronically assisted genre fluidity, which they've translated into some thoughtful, seriously crafted alternative music. I like them.

Review

The EP is a real trip too. It quivers, stutters, shimmers and glitches into life, the distressed machines pinching, prodding and generally teasing the sweetly told tale; they even throw in some whistling to see the track out, and let’s face it, the world needs more whistling. “Pretties Girl” then hops on an old-time folk horse, that ambles through the speakers like a lonesome cowboy in no hurry to get to the next town. The machines get a look in again on “Gambler” giving the nineteenth-century Apalachian vibes a dream-pop makeover. They then take a catchier, new-millennial pop path to “America”, adding some heavily baked psyche guitar in an attempt to soundtrack the country’s current madness. Not content with confounding expectations in the previous four tracks, they then infuse field recording-rooted ambient vibes with a krautrock bass line that spirals off into heart-of the-sun-destined guitar feeback, before morphing into leftfield dream-pop territory. There’s never a dull, stereotypical moment with these two.

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