HOW TO SWIM – It Stings When I EP (Personal Hygiene, PH02)
Posted: June 5th, 2005, by CrayolaIt Stings When I EP took me completely by surprise. I think I was expecting to be mildly disappointed while having to listen to half arsed post post rock but no. How dare a band I’ve never heard of not sound anything like their cover art and rubbish record title suggest.
How to Swim are, if anything, part of a new movement that I’ve just made up.
How to Swim are ‘Post Vaudeville’.
From the opening operatic boom of Bones, all slightly discordant chords fighting swathes of brass and a singer coming on like Nick Cave on cheap Rye Whisky, through the cleverly constructed Bhundu Boys (yes really, Bhundu Boys) riff of There’s a Building There, this EP uses a host of styles while maintaining a logical progression for the players in the band.
And there’s a lot of them.
200 at the last count.
OK, perhaps not 200, but there’s a lot of them.
I like this EP a lot for two reasons:
The sheer audacity of the sound that the band create to complement some really quite clever song writing, and the fact that there’s so many of them that I daren’t say anything bad.
Crayola
Crayola's musical heritage stretches way back to having one of the most impressive record collections in Telford. Always on the outer limits of the most independent of independent music, he now co-runs Kabukikore Records and releases more records and CDRs than you can shake an obscure stick a t. And they have some nice packaging, too.