The fairly bizarrely-named Foreign Slippers, AKA Gabrielle Frödén, is a Swedish singer-songwriter – and currently, a pretty obscure one. But on the basis of this EP, Oh Death, I for one wouldn’t bet against her fragile arrangements and beautiful voice helping her become more widely known.

These five songs are sparse – small, fairly brief tales of heartache, dreaming, and meditations on (unsurprisingly) death. These tales are heard from that aforementioned voice, and wrapped up in delicate piano, subtle acoustic guitar, gently brushed drums, and intermittent washes of strings, along with all kinds of other fragile instrumental touches. The pace is steady across the EP - a kind of slow, meditative journeying feel, although “Don’t Go” does have a curious, waltzing lilt to it. This isn’t a record that makes big, bold statements – neither lyrically nor musically – but it does have an intoxicating, quiet appeal. This is the kind of music that should given the fullness of your intention, so that its uncomplicated, pretty instrumentation and Frödén’s warm, versatile voice can shine through. Continue Reading

Imagine yourself as a member of an up-and-coming band, on the brink of releasing a shiny new EP. Full of excitement and optimism, you’d be talking with record company people, talking to your existing fans, talking to everyone you know about the momentous event. You’d have made sure that the meagre five songs you can release would be exciting, interesting and vibrant, so as to wow the reviewers on discerning music websites. You’d do anything but squander the opportunity, right?

Out of the five tracks Swimming have to wow us with here, there are two that begin to push the envelope. One of the songs in question is “Panthalassa”, a propulsive slice of electro-rock sandwiched in between “Pretle Pane” (an instrumental noise-dirge which serves no purpose whatsoever and you will never, ever listen to again) and “There’s A Mountain (Henry & Clare)” which is a barely passable slow-builder which at least has some mildly interesting guitar work going for it. Continue Reading

So what does the term “indie music” mean these days? Back in the good ‘ole days it was easy; literally something released independently. Nowadays, well, it’s a bit more complicated. You have to go a long away to find a truely “independent” label these days and they’re increasingly becoming a dying breed as the recent shifting of power at 4AD shows. In the good ‘ole days The Late Greats would be described as “indie”. But, at the moment, these guys sound like stuff that’s in the charts, that’s featured on MTV and E4 and would use to soundtrack the end of an episode of Skins .

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