Monday, November 18, 2013

Swoop Swoop on Metal Postcard Records


Although based in Hong Kong, Metal Postcard Records don't confine themselves to artists from that part of the world. Sean's label is after anything interesting that happens to show up on his radar like this single from Swoop Swoop out of Perth, Australia. Swoop Swoop the solo project from Sean Gorman (different Sean) sent Cyclic Defrost one of his releases in for review where Alex Crowfoot covered it and passed it along to Sean at Metal Postcard who helped put together this debut single.

An ebbing theremin style feedback opens "Tomorrow We Will Triumph", it's a muffled heavy tone without that usual harsh edge and on second thought might be a lap steel with a slow attack among other things on the effect here. A jangly metallic acoustic strums in while that lap finds a melody under heavy reverb while handclaps construct that homemade futuristic folk sound. Sean has that lone storytelling feel in a doubled strained vocal style that reminds me of Pumice or Pink Reason. It's sincere frustrated desperation in it's formation with just enough janky experimentation to make this interesting while still being a melancholy pop. The way he utilizes this unpredictable rising hum, wrangling it into a calming sea of rhythm is probably pushing himself into some interesting areas.

B-Side's "It's Spring" has a slow fingerpicking strum and must be a live track, that pedal steel sound is stronger and you get a sense of Sean's ability to grip an audience with not much more than an acoustic in an effortless way that only a natural songwriter could. His vocal through a PA without the comfort of home production lays everything out in concrete posterity, not a place bedroom artists are willing to go in front of an audience.

It's Spring, everything's changed / God, I feel love again

His loose confessional country is like the Ohio River Boat Song single from Will Oldham's Palace. This a view of both sides of Swoop, from the contained home recording to free working in a real space, it's not easy to be this comfortable in both places.

You can pick this up at on this list of North American distro's that carry Metal Postcard releases.

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