Swims Vinyl & CDs

Review: With its crackly, gravelled textures, subtle melodic details and off-beat rhythms it's no surprise comparisons have been drawn between 'Finomehanika', Vladislav Delay's 'Mulitia' and Autechre circa 'Confield'. Fittingly, those turn-of-the-millennia masterpieces also arrived around the same time Merlak's 'Albumski' landed, his most recent long form outing until unveiling this, his latest effort. Talk about a long time coming, while the stylistic similarities might suggest a lack of progression since 2001, nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, what's here could be perhaps best described as avant-garde electronic warbles and shuffles, of the type you might hear after stepping into a capsule floating through blackest space. But although familiar, the album arguably represents the artist's deepest exploration of what can be done with a combination of synthesis, piano and field noises.

Review: You don't need to know that Craobh Haven was made during a one week residency at a tiny cabin in a remote Scottish village of the same name. One play through of the latest stunner to land on the ever-excellent ambient institution SWIMS and it'll feel like you were there in person. A witness to the creation of this strangely natural-feeling, highly technically-crafted, six tracker. Everything about the work by London-based musician and visual artist Loz Keystone and Glaswegian synth explore and jazz trumpeter Christos Stylianides feels in the right place. Its warm and fuzzy but vast and windswept. It's avant garde and abstract, but rounded and complete. It's incredibly inviting and slowly hypnotic. Distant samples of inaudible chatter and looped melodic refrains. Distorted walls of noise masking the patient power of aching brass. You get the point.

Review: "The music was born and recorded in the house of my childhood, trying my best to compose the view of the woods as the sky turns indigo on some late spring evening." Otto Taimela uses his words concisely, but manages to evoke a very particular place, feeling and mood when taking about his May 2024 full length masterpiece, Inner Beauty. Following on from a more chaotic and turbulent IDM EP on SWIMS sister label, Cold blow, the maestro is back in a guide most of us are more familiar with. Pastoral ambient and sumptuous, slow burning piano work, Inner Beauty is one of those rare moments where a record feels complete, even while opening our eyes to a world of aural possibilities. Introspective in the same way we tend to consider internal tranquility as we look out on the stunning surrounds of rural somewhere, this is a world to get lost in.