Great Lake Swimmers

Sound DNA

• Rock

About

Great Lake Swimmers’ eponymous debut album is a beautifully melancholic album which combines elements of timeless Americana, ambient folk and modern-day indie songwriting sensibilities in the spirit of Sun Kil Moon or Iron and Wine. But unlike their contemporaries, Great Lake Swimmers weren’t content to capture their blues in a recording studio. These songs were tracked from inside an abandoned grain silo in Southern Ontario. “Moving Pictures Silent Films” begins so bucolically that you can hear farmland insects quietly chirping behind Tony Dekker’s balmy breathy vocals while he gently picks an acoustic guitar. “The Man With No Skin” is another pastoral dirge where Dekker’s buttermilk- smooth voice recalls Joe Pernice’s tenure with Scud Mountain Boys. The comparison is even more uncanny on “Moving, Shaking” where the trill in his warble echoes Pernice’s performance throughout the similarly spare 1995 album <i>Pine Box</i>. “I Will Never See the Sun” isn’t as gloomy as its title suggests, thanks in part to some gospel-inspired harmonies and a pedaling rhythm.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits