SWIMS

Goddamn. SWIMS deserve more praise than a short skinny article can deliver.

But NN is buggered if it can locate more than scant sketchy details on the duo. SWIMS (no 'The', all caps) consist of agile, loose-limbed drummer Mark Rocha and nimble bass counterpart Paul Slack, two Sacramentans that first shacked up musically in 2002. Rocha is a former district Spelling Bee champion, and Slack (allegedly) drives a DeLorean. That’s about yer lot, unless you’re living around California and the Mid-west currently and can get to see them play.

So all you’re left with is their music. SWIMS hinge with an astonishing elastic nerviness, at one point on their debut mini-album coming form a smiliar place to that which Battles head from. Their influences reach further back – Don Caballero, France’s Cheval de Frise, maybe even a hint of Tortoise at their sparkiest – than everyone’s fave new instrumental rock band though. Hell, frankly there's plenty of reason why SWIMS couldn’t end up making moves on that title themselves, if the exuberant promise of their self-titled record’s six tracks is anything to go by.

SWIMS feel more consistently tune-focussed than maybe any of the aforementioned three, with no flab or fucking about in there, cutting right down to the chase where all of the latter often take/took their time winding up into gear (for better or worse).

There's more to them too though. Built upon such glorious and often terrifying propulsion, their tunes are laced with lively twists and delicate touches more akin to the moods of Billy Mahonie, both their most teeth-baring and devilish as well as more delicate moments. With the likes of '(Pop) The Bubble Boy' and ‘Beauty In Battle’ it all coalesces, interlocking immediately into something subtle, jolting, and downright tough. Indeed, SWIMS always manage to imbue enough grit in there to ground whatever freewheeling guitar riddles Slack delivers, a tightness and bite to every track that keeps it from ever straying into a dismissible slew of guitar wankery.

Just from those names their music conjures up, and how SWIMS build their tracks, you also sense immediately that everything’s in place for this pair to be a helluva thrilling live experience. Like all the other bands mentioned it just feels in their very nature, possessing this sharp thrilling kinesis at their peak that’d simply thrive on stage. 

This is post-rock for those to whom the bloody term doesn't simply mean laboriously aping and boiling down instrumental rock to the most obvious and tedious of Mogwai/Godspeed parts. Something moody and tense, just mathy enough, and always exciting. What a way to start.