The question on the card now is: will I get to the end of this series before I reach my next birthday? I do not deny that is not the most exciting of questions, but…
Swansea Sound: a band that came into being during lockdown and decided that fast, loud, political indiepop punk was the answer to being stuck indoors. Who needs introspection? Hue Williams is reunited with Pooh Sticks singing partner Amelia Fletcher (ex-Talulah Gosh, Heavenly). Rob Pursey (also ex-Heavenly) and Ian Button (Wreckless Eric’s live collaborator) provide the noise. Swansea Sound are the funny, angry, gleeful and savage past, present and future of indie.
That’s what they say. I’m sold already, especially after I was reminded of this on Twitter recently.
I enjoyed their description of the second track on the forthcoming album Live At The Rum Puncheon (released 19 November 2021, not available on streaming sites).
‘I Sold My Soul on eBay’, also two minutes long, savages the corporate piracy of our digital present, where anyone can earn plenty of ‘likes’, but no-one gets paid any money.
There is also some stuff the weird way music only attains value in some people’s eyes if it has monetary value attached, which looks like fun and vaguely subversive: Four of the tracks were released as singles, all of them now impossible to obtain. ‘Corporate Indie Band’ was a limited edition cassette, ‘I Sold My Soul on eBay’ was a one-off lathe cut that got auctioned on eBay (with a £400 winning bid), ‘Indies of the World’ was a 7” inch single that briefly hit the UK physical charts, but quickly sold out and plummeted back out again.
Mostly, I was impressed by the fact the band still remembered me and decided to send me an email informing me of all this despite the fact I clearly am not in any sort of position to aid them in their quest to gain two dozen more ‘likes’ on Facebook and perhaps Twitter as well.
I seem to have changed my tenses. Senses. Tenses. Swansea Sound don’t like shit-stirring racist trolls, and neither do I. The following track is quite downbeat, sardonic and vaguely melancholy – not savage or gleeful, although I may have a different understanding of these words. Or fast or loud either… although it’s all relative. It’s all very post-postmodern (and again, I think I am struggling with definitions) but there are harmonies, there is intelligence, there is a gorgeous sense of togetherness and love for the music of Chris Sievey, and it feels like it’s about to rain any moment and so I need to move this laptop inside. I like this song. It makes me feel a lot warmer inside than I am feeling outside right now.
I do get the impression however that some – if not all of – these people may be too self-aware for their own good.
How NOT to write about music 