BONUS POST : AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #375: ‘SWIMMING’

SWC/Barry Stubbs over at No Badger Required is currently in the middle of a series about the Olympics.  As you might expect, the posts are very well crafted, packed with personal anecdotes that will inevitably crack a smile from even the most stone-faced person on the planet, always accompanied by a selection of interesting tunes taken from all sorts of genres.

His post about swimming got me thinking that I probably had more than enough tunes on the hard drive to come up with some sort of half-decent ICA.  Feel free to dive in and enjoy, while noting some of them did feature on the post over at NBD.

SIDE A

1. Swim – Madder Rose

Madder Rose, from New York City, released four albums of decent enough indie-pop in the 90s and then, like so many of their peers, reformed a few decades later to take advantage of the fact that so many of their original fans had got to a stage in life when their circumstances meant they had a bit mote disposable income to spend on new music and going to see them play live again after such a long hiatus.

Swim, which was also released as a single in 1993, can be found on the debut album Bring It Down.  I am a bit of a sucker for the way Mary Lorson delivers her vocal in such a dreamy and understated way, and is something of a perfect fit for the tune written by the band’s guitarist, Billy Coté

2. The Blue Line – Out of The Swim

A four-piece band from Falkirk, an industrial town located halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh with an uncanny ability to produce a ridiculous amount of talented musicians, writers and authors.   This is the opening track from the album Rescue Therapy, released on Last Night From Glasgow in 2022.

3. Swim Until You Can’t See Land – Frightened Rabbit

Thought long and hard about this.  Still find it occasionally difficult to listen to some of the Frightened Rabbit songs in the aftermath of singer Scott Hutchison‘s suicide back in 2018, with this one being down to the fact that having last been seen walking towards a road bridge spanning the Firth of Forth, his body was found on the banks of the river. 

But then again, this is not a song about death/suicide.  Scott, in an interview at the time of the release of the album The Winter of Mixed Drinks (2010) said it was inspired by a Ben Kingsley film, The Wackness.

“There’s a scene in it which Kingsley’s character goes down to the sea and starts swimming and swimming. I think he’s trying to kill himself, but he gets so far and realises he’d rather come back.   ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ was the title I had in my mind before I even started writing the album; I was becoming more and more interested in the idea of a rejection of the habits and behaviour most people see as normal, and in turn embracing a certain madness. It’s about losing your mind in order to reset the mind and the body. Forget what’s gone before and wash it out. This is not necessarily a geographical journey, as the ‘swim’ can involve any activity in which you can lose yourself. It’s a good introduction to the record, as the theme unravels therein.”

4. Swimming Pools (Drank) – Kendrick Lamar

From the 2012 album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.  As someone else has so eloquently said elsewhere on t’internet,  ‘What sounds like a club anthem is actually an introspective take on the social pressure and self-defeating attitudes that drive people to drink.’ 

It’s an immense piece of music.

5. Nightswimming – R.E.M.

The beautiful and haunting piano-led one from the multi-multi-multi million selling Automatic For The People (1992).  

It’s a lovely piece of music.

SIDE B

1. Swimming Pool, Movie Stars – The Wedding Present

I’m fully expecting to hear this played live this coming Friday night when myself and Rachel make our way down to Brighton to get ourselves along to the 2024 edition of ‘At The Edge Of The Sea’, the annual two-day festival curated by David Gedge at which both his bands will be performing.  The Wedding Present live shows this year have been to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of Watusi….thus the levels of expectation!

2. Let’s Go Swimming – Allo Darlin’

Soft-centred indie-pop of the finest type. From the band’s eponymous debut album, released back in 2010.  They’ve been away for along while, but a new album has been recorded and with a bit of luck it’ll see the light of day before the year is out.

3. Sink Or Swim – The Delgados

Universal Audio was the fifth and final studio album to be released by The Delgados.  It’s hard to believe that it was fully 20 years ago.  I had hoped, when they reformed and played the live shows in 2022/23, that it might somehow lead to new material.  But with two members of the band now immersed in making a living in occupations that have nothing to do with music, I have to accept it was always going to be a forlorn hope.

4. Cloudbusting Lovesong – Swimmer One

Swimmer One were an Edinburgh-based group, formed by Hamish Brown and Andrew Eaton-Lewis in 2002, with Laura Cameron Lewis joining the line-up in 2007, with their music really being an electronica take on indie.  There were two albums and a handful of singles before they called it a day in 2013. 

This is a one half of a double-A released in 2006 single – I don’t have said single, only discovering it years later via t’internet.  It’s a very intriguing take on the Kate Bush song, which then segues into one by The Cure.  Dating from 2006 means it was recorded prior to Laura joining the band, and the female vocal on this occasion is courtesy of Cora Bissett, who has been mentioned before, being the lead singer in Darlingheart and whose theatrical show What Girls Are Made Of was reviewed on the blog back in 2019.

5. Swim For Health – Ballboy

Side A of this ICA finished with a beautiful and haunting ballad…..and likewise Side B. If anything, this one is even more beautiful and haunting.

This was originally released on the Girls Are Better Than Boys EP in 2001, and later included on the album Club Anthems, released the same year. 

JC