SWiiMS - Fade Days (Mint 400 Records)

Where have you been all my life? Well, that isn’t strictly fair; a colleague of mine posted a review of Into the Blue Night on this very site, and I knew then that this was a band for me. Upon checking that album out, I’m pretty sure I uttered those same words then. And, in fairness to myself, there is only so much time in the day to discover, explore, and immerse yourself in new music (new to me, that is), even for those of us lucky enough to write about music for a living.

Anyway, I digress. So, here’s another question for you. What’s not to like? Well, in my case, nothing. There is nothing I don’t love about “Fade Days,” and, not to get all nostalgic about it, there is so much going on here that reminds me of my formative days as a wide eyed, young music consumer, but somehow SWiiMS manages to keep things fresh and still familiar.

“Fade Days” is built of gently shimmering jangling salvos of guitar, unfussy back beats, basslines that pulse and propel the song without you realizing they are doing so, and my god, those vocals. If Mai Diaz Langou isn’t the epitome of the dream state 4AD vocal sound transplanted to the present day, then I don’t know what it is.

And it is a song of two parts…two beautiful parts. The first is a restrained and lush wash of sonics, hazy, heavenly, and gorgeous in its use of dynamic, ebbing, and flowing between understatement and more energetic pursuits. And then, after a short and sparse interlude, it picks up the pace and heads for the finishing line, a short, sharp, and shockingly sensual sonic sprint and all the time never losing its poise and posture.

It is a song that I would have loved had it been around back in the day, a song that I love now, and I can put money on the fact that it is a song that I will still love ten, twenty, thirty years from now.

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