Released: May 2010
Cat No: BIPH07CD
- Dead Orchestras
- This Club is for Everybody, Even You
- The Erskine Bridge
- Psychogeography
- Here’s Your Train, Safe Home
- Lorelei and Dorothy
- You Have Fallen Way Short of Our Expectations
- The Fakester Resurrection
- Ghosts in the Hotel
- All the Hits
Press release
There cannot, surely, be many bands who find themselves compared favourably to both Belle and Sebastian and the KLF. Such is the curious fate of Edinburgh’s Swimmer One, whose experimental pop music has proved almost impossible to categorise but whose debut album, The Regional Variations, won rave reviews on its release in 2007.
Championed by Rob Da Bank, Mark Radcliffe and Steve Lamacq (among others on Radio One, XFM, 6 Music and elsewhere), this distinctive Scottish band have been quietly building a reputation for themselves since the release of their beguiling debut single, We Just Make Music For Ourselves – rapturously described by Mark Radcliffe as a ‘terrific’ blend of Pulp, Elbow, the Blue Nile and Baba O Riley by The Who.
Two years on from The Regional Variations, Swimmer One are back with their second album, Dead Orchestras. A bold artistic leap forward, it is even more dizzyingly diverse than their debut, taking in everything from the electronic art pop of This Club Is For Everybody, Even You, Psychogeography and Lorelei and Dorothy to the anthemic, guitar-driven Ghosts In The Hotel and You Have Fallen Way Short Of Our Expectations. It’s an album that finds room for both a 12-minute, three-part pop symphony (The Fakester Resurrection) and a simple, two-minute acoustic lament (All The Hits). It is even a concept album, of sorts, a collection of songs about the things we leave behind when we’re gone – as parents, as lovers, and as a species.
When not recording their painstakingly crafted albums in a studio in a disused church, Swimmer One spend their time doing remixes (most recently for the current single by Withered Hand), playing live throughout the UK and abroad, filming award-winning videos and making theatre shows. Their music recently featured in the film Spread, the first Hollywood movie by Scottish director David Mackenzie (Young Adam, Hallam Foe), starring Ashton Kutcher.
Director: Daniel Warren