SWAN DRY formed in mid-2024 as an across-the-ditch collaboration of New Zealand artists, Davo and Oli, split between Wellington and Melbourne. Finally, with the help of our beloved creative shoegaze crew Oceans, the duo were able to tie all the sonic plot threads of their long-distance project together, and here is the first single “Recoil.”
“Recoil” draws from the obsession with the 70s and current alternative, post-punk and new wave acts such as Gang of Four, The Sound, New Order, Split Enz, The Chills and Fontaines DC, creating a chaotic sound that is all their own.
Lyric-wise the track invokes themes of retrospect, doldrums and lying awake late at night with your brain looping on that one dumb inconsequential thing you did five years ago.
“Recoil” combines agonizing cadenced introspection with rushing of emotional energy, as well as The Sound-like shivering fluid keyboard chords with a Mark E. Smith-esque groaning soliloquy, inlaid by a reverb-filled, sparkling emotive guitar work.
Sad emotional vocals, imbued with restless pain, resonate on a rolling bed of skittering percussions and icy liquid blankets through a pulsing build-up of anxiously jagged, twinkling guitar riffs, to break with a flurry of blaring dramatic synth washes, droning textures, and achingly piercing flourishings, into an angry raucous release.
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