Album Review: Swim Camp - Steel Country

And there was a time, of course, and you will have to forgive me for breaking the fourth wall here, within the first sentence, to talk about the time before—a time I remember, certainly, to the extent that I can, especially since there is evidence left behind, but what I am struggling to recall with any clarity is how this all began to shift from what it was then, to what it has more or less become now.

There was a time, at least up until roughly four years ago, when I hadn’t made everything so complicated for myself, and made things so, perhaps, challenging or inaccessible for you, the reader. There was a time when I could get to the conceit of a piece—specifically, here, we are talking about my process for writing what ultimately is supposed to be an album review—well before hitting a surprisingly high number in my word count. 

There was a time when, yes, the pieces were a lot shorter, and in their comparative brevity, there was little, if any, attempt on my part to overextend literary devices or metaphors, or flimsy narratives, or the challenge of tying together a number of strands with the hope that, in the end, it will make sense to someone. 

There was a time—especially in the first year or two of the now decade that I have been doing this, that yes, since the pieces were much, much shorter, and because of that comparative brevity, I was able to be much more prolific¹—often writing around two or three albums a week—sometimes more, as opposed to the two albums a month, three if I’m lucky, that I am able to make the time and space to thoughtfully and accurately write about today—a pace that I found I was not so much resigning myself to somewhere between 2019 and 2020, but a notable change I, within certain moments, had difficulties understanding and accepting. 

And there was a time—I can recall at least before 2020², when I could, was more than capable, and was more than willing to write about an album without having, and more importantly, having to have, a physical copy of it—something that I am, honestly, remiss to do as of late for myriad reasons, one of which, at the risk of sounding absolutely pretentious, is that as an active, and thoughtful listener, the absence of a physical edition of an album (CD or LP, or even a cassette) prevents me from fully experiencing the album, or connecting with it on some kind of, perhaps imagined, more significant or deeper level. 

It is no fault of the album, but the aforementioned absence then creates a barrier for me that I have slowly, at least within the last year, tried to find a way to work around, but the barrier does make it more difficult for me to write with the accuracy and thought I want to. 

Or, at least, this is what I regularly tell myself.

There was a time—especially in the first year or two of the now decade that I have been doing this, that yes, since the pieces were much, much shorter, and because of that comparative brevity, I was much more prolific than I am in recent years, in terms of the amount of content I was generating. 

And that’s the thing, though—or, at least, part of it. The way one looks at the art they make or the thing that they are doing because they are passionate about it. It requires effort—continued thought, and effort, to maintain this art, or this kind of work, because if there is a point where there is less passion, or thought, it runs the risk of becoming something you are simply going through the motions with, perhaps feel a sense of disdain for or resentment toward, and look at it as “content” you are unable to shake the pressure of feeling the need to generate. 

And that’s the thing, though, with all of this, that even after a decade, I still struggle with in terms of a balance and an acceptance—recognizing that this, for several years now, has not been about “content generation,” and retrospectively it is easy for me to say that it more than likely never should have been. 

But it is, in the internet age, easy to get swept up in how quickly everything moves, and believe in the false sense of urgency to keep creating more, regardless of if your heart is in it, or you can make the time, and find the space, to do it.

I had never thought about giving myself a break from all of this, or even building and respecting personal boundaries and limitations, until the autumn of 2020. 

Even when things for me, personally, were extremely dire—a period around seven or eight years ago—at no point did I think about showing myself any kind of grace in this regard; I just kept writing. The amount I was writing, and the enjoyment I felt during the process—less and less, certainly, but even when things felt the bleakest, the options I gave myself were to keep going, as difficult as it was, or just walk away from this completely, which I have almost done a number of times.

I had never considered just briefly stepping back—a month, or two, and I certainly had never considered the idea of building and respecting personal boundaries and limitations, given the circumstances I found myself in when things were their bleakest. 

The break I eventually granted myself toward the end of 2020 was not even a break—no, not exactly. I used the month of September to write two rather long reflections—the first on the twentieth anniversary of Radiohead’s Kid A; the second was a personal essay about the twentieth anniversary of when I was arrested as a 17-year-old—both of which would be published in October. 

The break I granted myself was not even a break, but the time I gave myself—meeting myself where I was, I suppose, to work ahead, and set myself up for success in terms of having work to share—content that was generated, you could argue, for the coming month, allowing me to focus on writing additional pieces for October, and looking ahead toward the work to be done in the final two months of the year.

The following year, in 2021, I did not give myself a break in terms of stepping away for a month, but for October and November, I set boundaries about the amount of things I thought I would be in a position to write about (two pieces each month—one new release, and one reissue.) And my intent, of course, after its digital release in October, was to spend the time with Fishing In A Small Boat, the third full-length from Tom Morris’ project Swim Camp, when it arrived on vinyl in January of 2022—making it one of the first reviews of the new year, which is a challenging time to be a music writer from both coming out of the frenetic energy that goes into making an “end of year” list, and it is a slow time for interesting new releases that might be worth spending time with. 

Because there was a time, at least before 2020, when I could, was more than capable, and was more than willing, to write about an album without having, and more importantly, feeling like I had to have a physical copy of it. Because even at the risk of sounding pretentious, the absence of a physical edition of an album does, or at least I have convinced myself it does, prevent me from fully experiencing it or connecting with it on some more significant, or more profound level—and I, upon the estimated proposed arrival of the vinyl pressing of Fishing In A Small Boat, wanted to experience and connect with it, and give the album the time and space it deserved for an accurate and thoughtful reflection.

The modern production—and regular delays—of vinyl production for smaller artists and labels is an enormous source of contention for all parties involved: the group, the label, and in the end, the listener, so I was not all that surprised, and mostly just disappointed, when the proposed January arrival of the album came and went—Fishing, then, was estimated to be available on LP in April.

However, as April came to a close, the label that was once set to release it, Know Hope, sent out a message to those who had placed an order for the album, letting them know that due to “unforeseen circumstances³,” they were going to be “unable to fulfill” those orders—that the album, at the time, would not be pressed onto vinyl, and that refunds would be issued.

*

Following the original release of Fishing In A Small Boat, in the autumn of 2021, and into the first few months of 2022, while I still presumed that I would be granted the opportunity to sit down with a physical iteration of the album and write about it—during this time, and while sitting down to reflect on Blue Cabinet⁴, the sophomore LP from Jess Awh’s project Bats, I found I was ruminating on the very idea of the descriptor, or the genre, of “indie rock.”

Specifically, what we think of when we do think of “indie rock,” or how the term, now, is used and what it is used to describe, and what I, as the listener, actually want from it. 

Is “indie” indicative of a specific sound, or aesthetic? Perhaps “indie,” alone, is too broad of a descriptor, and I hesitate to say that “indie rock” is better in narrowing down what kind of sound you are referencing—but maybe it is. 

Is “indie” indicative of the creative freedom the artist or band has—making music that can, but isn’t always, inaccessible, but has the opportunity to take more significant artistic risks, or push boundaries, more than other bands or artists might be willing to.

Is “indie” indicative of the way the music is released? Is it an artist self-releasing music online, or is there an arrangement of some kind with a label—and at what point does the size of the label, or the kind of pull it might have within the music industry or marketplace, make it seem slightly less independent?

What I found near the end of 2021, and into the first half of 2022, was that I was drawn, and really, still am drawn, to a kind of idiosyncratic style of “indie rock.” Perhaps a little hushed, or folk adjacent in moments, perhaps a little lo-fi and ramshackle sounding in others—the kind of sound, within this genre, that I find compelling, is something that sounds a bit like Sparklehorse⁵—esoteric, densely layered, thoughtful, and perpetually shifting between a gentle, somber nature, or becoming extraordinarily cacophonic. 

*

And it would be understandable if Tom Morris had allowed the long-gestating and unfortunate experience with his former label, to prevent him from wanting to make another Swim Camp album—I wouldn’t fault him at all for stepping away from performing and recording, either for a few years, or indefinitely, because other artists certainly have reacted that way to disappointing situations within the “business” side of performing. 

As discouraging and maddening of a situation as this must have been, Morris, under the Swim Camp moniker, has returned—connecting with a new and seemingly much more supportive label—with Steel Country. Spread across 14 tracks (12 songs and two brief interludes); the album finds Morris continuing his work within the primarily guitar-driven, somewhat downcast-sounding, densely layered “indie rock” aesthetic he carved out on Fishing In A Small Boat. The marvel, though, is that within the short amount of time between the two albums (a year and a half), the amount of growth and focus in Morris’ songwriting within the material on Steel Country is noticeable from the moment it begins, and it remains impressive throughout.

And there is an introspective nature to Morris’ output as Swim Camp—especially on Fishing In A Small Boat, and certainly here on Steel Country—that is, perhaps, not surprising given the genre, or overall sound, but what is more surprising, and possibly more important, is the introspection with which one should listen to it, if that makes sense. 

Steel Country is not an inherently quiet, or pensive kind of album, but even when it finds its way to its most raucous of moments, there is still a kind of intimacy to it—often warm and inviting, and because of this element, it is the kind of album that is best approached, at least at first, through a thoughtful, rather close listen. 

Musically, there is a dichotomy that Morris walks throughout Steel Country—taking the general introspective, or inward nature of Swim Camp, and then understanding when and where to pull it in even further, and push it out to its absolute limits. Excelling within both extremes, it is perhaps most exciting, or compelling, when the instrumentation on the album is pushed further and further out—specifically when it seems like it is about to reach its breaking point.

Overall, of course, there are songs on Steel Country that lean more into one kind of aesthetic over the other, but even within a song itself, there are moments, both large and small, where Morris is working to manage the sense of tension and release—a technique that is present within the first three songs: “Line in Sand,” “Dougie,” and the first single released from Steel Country, “Pillow.”

“Pillow,” which was initially issued near the end of 2022, is where this specific kind of give and take within the song is much more subtle than it is elsewhere, relying more on a surprisingly woozy feeling that surges throughout from the moment it begins until it gently tumbles to an end. The percussion—Morris himself has a background as a jazz drummer—clatters underneath the intricate textures that are woven between the layers of dreamy and seemingly cavernous sounding guitar strums, and the inclusion of low, slight keyboard tones just rippling underneath it all. 

And I hesitate to refer to moments, structurally, in both “Line in Sand,” and “Dougie,” as being predictable, because that does drastically sell short how ultimately compelling they both are, but within contemporary popular music that is working within the more traditional verse/chorus/verse form of organization, as a listener, you can kind of tell when something is going to happen—which is the case in both songs, as if Morris is almost too enthusiastic to reveal where the songs are going to go next as they unfold. 

“Line in Sand,” like a number of the tunes on Steel Country, begins with Morris counting off with muted plucks of his guitar strings—here, as the album opens, it is on a creaky acoustic guitar, which is then strummed cautiously and delicately, while Morris—singing in a fragile range, barely rising above a whisper, sounding like it his voice could simply shatter at any moment, utters the line, “The money’s gone—I tried to tell you,” stretching and holding specific words until he deems them able to be released.

And whether this was intentional on his part, or not—it more than likely was, as it is far too perfectly executed to be a coincidence in timing, but as “Line in Sand” reaches exactly the one-minute mark, the rest of the song’s robust, crisp sounding instrumentation arrives—a subtle bass line that rumbles just enough at the very bottom of the song to remind you that it’s there, slow motion, deliberate percussion keeping a steady, though seemingly glacial rhythm, and two additional layers of guitars that gently shimmer and cascade over the top of it all.

Morris does something similar on the jittery “Dougie,” the album’s second track and the second issued in advance of the record in full—much faster in its pacing (and a lot shorter in its running time), rather than waiting the full minute in, the song does quite literally explode with a surprising (and welcomed) and enthusiastic bombast about 30 seconds in—creating moments that sound much more enormous in size than they should be, injecting these brief places of a beautiful, noisy, tumbling catharsis. 

As Steel Country continues, Morris uses the portions of the album to explore both the furthest reaches of the notion of “indie rock,” and further develop the dynamism of Swim Camp as a project—something that had been established within the first three songs on the album, as well as on previous releases. The furthest away he ends up pulling the sonics of the album is on the two interludes (“cLotine” and “hevin00”) as well as on the closing track, “What I Saw,” all of which slant very heavily into a dissonant, experimental territory—Swim Camp, as a band, and Steel Country, as an album, though, are most successful and compelling when remaining in and working from a slightly more accessible perimeter.

And there is, I suppose, an opportunity for a convergence in the center of a Venn diagram, if you were to place “Indie Rock” in one circle, and “Indie Folk” in the other—this convergence, or overlap in aesthetics, is one of the elements that made an album like Bats’ Blue Cabinet and Saturn’s debut full-length, Radiator, so enjoyable when I came across them last year. 

You can hear echoes of this convergence within Swim Camp—certainly in moments on Fishing, like “Melt,” which features a violin within its instrumentation, giving it a twangy, folksy kind of feeling. Morris returns to this more folk-inspired or tinged sound within Steel Country’s first half of “Everything.” Lacking the rootsy violin slicing through the atmosphere of the song, “Everything” steadily creeps along in a shuffle through the crisp, emotive drumming, quiet and playful piano keys that twinkle within the mix toward the end of the song, and the tension created through the interplay of guitar lines—both electric and acoustic, simmering, and then building toward a powerful and beautifully sustained moment of release. 

Elsewhere, Morris allows some of the material on Steel Country to wander into a dreamier, hazier environment—like on “Cherry,” where, again, the relationship between the two guitar tracks is never one that fights for dominance within the mix, but results in something fascinating to hear while they circle around one another, with the crunchy, echoing rhythm guitar strums creating a heavier wall of sound, while a lighter, woozier lead guitar dances through it with grace. It is within a song like “Cherry,” too, where Morris works in a surprisingly infectious and emotionally impactful vocal melody, with all of it swirling together to become one of the more genuinely interesting moments on the record.

The second half of Steel Country is as dynamic and regularly fascinating as it's first—the last singles released (in tandem) shortly before the arrival of the album in full, “No” and “Apple,” are both placed within the second side: the former is among the more lo-fi in its production—tape hiss and minor warbles can be heard in literally every song on the album, but here, Morris’ voice is muffled within the mix of slow, gently brushed percussion, and closely mic’ed, strummed, off-kilter acoustic guitar, giving the feeling of something recorded on a dilapidated four-track; the latter is, like “Everything,” extremely twangy and folksy in the groove it strikes once it gets underway, following a baited and switched opening that is one of the more torrential and noisier moments here.

A band that Morris cites as an influence over what he does as Swim Camp is the beloved, idiosyncratic outfit Duster—once dubbed in a thinkpiece as your “favorite indie rock band’s favorite indie rock band.” Duster released two full-length albums during their original run in the late 1990s, before splitting up in 2001—reuniting in 2018 and releasing two additional albums of new material, renewed interest in the band’s previous efforts came through the Numero reissue, Capsule Losing Contact, in 2019. 

Duster, like several similarly minded acts of this time period (and perhaps it is not a coincidence that two of these similarly minded acts also were subject to Numero reissue⁶ packages within the last decade), can be categorized several ways, like “indie” or “slowcore,” or one that I am partial to, “downer rock.”

Morris’ work as Swim Camp isn’t always a bummer, or slanted into what could be called a “downer” to listen to, but there is something inherently downcast about some elements of the project. Fishing In A Small Boat, for example, has a sullen, downward feeling throughout its entire run, and there are flashes of that on Steel Country, especially on “Puddle,” which is structured primarily around the idea of release, as opposed to creating tension—and within the chugging, heavy guitar chords, and clattering work behind the drum kit (specifically within the opening of the song) there is a feeling, or a sensation, that seems to push the song beyond downcast, into a place of surprising menace.

And as surprising as the sense of menace is on “Puddle,” Morris continues to surprise with the diversity in tone as the album heads toward its conclusion—“Is This The Plan” is somber, gentle, and inevitably gives way to a shimmering, swirling chorus; “Heat Makes Cracks in The Bones” takes “downcast” forward into a place that can only be described as gloomy, powered by a rolling, taut truly post-punk inspired bass line; and the penultimate track, “Say Hi,” is perhaps the most surprising of this album, simply because of how anthemic and accessible it is—leaning heavily into frantic, rollicking, and rough around the edges indie pop.

*

And it has been pointed out to me—and certainly was something I was aware of before—that when listening to music, both for leisure, and analytically with the intent to write something about it, I am a “lyrics person.”

This, perhaps, comes from the amount I read, or it might come from the amount I write—there was a time, not all that long ago, that I did write (sometimes often) about things other than popular music. And I respect, though I cannot say I totally understand, that there are listeners out there that do not begin to analyze, and then overanalyze, the lyrics first—there are listeners who are simply looking for something catchy, or are more focused on the overall vibe, rather than one particular element.

After sitting with Steel Country, I am somewhat remiss to refer to it as an album that is more focused on an overall vibe, or an aesthetic, but it is not as lyrical as other albums, or artists I gravitate toward. And that is to say, though, that it is not as lyrical at all—there are moments, or small phrase turns, that did grab my attention, and certainly lingered after the album ended.

There is an abstraction, or an ambiguity that is found in a bulk of Morris’ lyricism on Steel Country—fragments that, at times, are more or less another element within the fabric of the song to keep it moving forward and create the larger whole; other times, within those fragments, there are lines that are often not any less ambiguous in their context, but are moments that resonate just a little deeper, or are genuinely more thought-provoking, which allows them to be extracted slightly and analyzed—or, if anything, to be appreciated. 

One of those lyrics, which I think will stay with me the longest from Steel Country, arrives within the first minute of the opening song, “Line in Sand”—“People change—I’m not the same now.” “Line in Sand” is full of cryptic, short phrases—often held in a way where it seems like Morris’ voice is simply going to fucking shatter, specifically in the song’s introduction. After his admission of change, Morris continues, pulling the song into starker territory: “On my way, he had a breakdown.”

Later on, within the menace of “Puddle,” the seemingly innocuous phrase, “The puddle’s getting deeper,” is repeated over the cacophony, creating a sense of both desperation and dread.

It is not all all ambiguities or dread, though, on Steel Country—there is a moment of recognizable minutia that stands out toward the end of the record, on “Apple,” where Morris croons through the twangy shuffle of the song, “We talk while about your family—how they’ve been and are they happy?” 

Something that I’ve had a somewhat well documented, at least as of late, difficulty with, within contemporary popular music, is the acceptance that not everything, regardless of the genre, has to be so serious, or straight-faced all the time—that it is okay to make music that has a sense of humor, or is self-aware enough in how it is executed.

Steel Country isn’t exactly a humorless album—a majority of it, if it is there, is subtle, but there is one place where Morris opts to take himself far less seriously than he does elsewhere, and it happens early on in the album on the nervy, explosive “Dougie.”

Parenthetically dedicated to Morris’ friend Sharyl, who had heard his original demo of the song and encouraged him to develop it further into a “fully realized” song, as he put it, Morris explained upon the release of the single that it’s a song about the dangers of a co-dependent friendship. “They support you, but enable bad behavior,” he said, adding, “Ultimately, this ends up being bad for everyone involved.

“Feelin’ funny,” Morris deadpans as the quickly paced “Dougie” begins. “Not quite myself lately. Spent some money—buy some shit that I do not need from my buddy; he waited around just to see me.”

And there is a humor, certainly, in the way, Morris leans into the words that rhyme, or nearly rhyme, at the end of every other line, but it is within the second verse, following the explosive instrumental break, that serves as a chorus of sorts, where the self-awareness, or at least a smirk toward the listener (while still being somewhat cryptic) is more apparent in lines like, “Fuck—that’s funny. That other band fucking hates me,” or the last lyric uttered before the instrumentation of “Dougie” detonates one final time, “Brain got fuzzy—oh shit, he’s aiming at me.”

*

However you want your version of “indie rock” to sound, in terms of instrumentation, lyricism, pacing, or whatever—it is the overall fuzzy, homemade, idiosyncratic feeling that Steel Country has coursing through it, and that to an extent, Swim Camp has as a band, or a project, that drew me to listen in the first place, and has kept me interested since I first came across Morris’ output under this moniker—shortly before the release of Fishing In A Small Boat, in the fall of 2021.

The aesthetic, at least here on Steel Country, anyway, works, and works so well, because of the people involved within its construction—outside of Morris, Mark Watter—who also had a hand in producing, engineering, and mixing Fishing, is back behind the scenes of Steel Country (credited as mixing), with Heather Jones listed as mastering the record—Jones, outside of their own work in the project Ther, produced Radiator, the debut full-length (and one of my favorite records of 2022) from Sadurn, a record that had an extremely intimate, dynamic feeling, both warm and inviting, but crisp, punchy, and energetic when it needed to be, and that is something Jones brings within their work in crafting the final product here.

The meticulous detail of how Steel Country sounds—the different textures and depth that each song’s drum track has, or even the way that there is still a distinction between the layers of sometimes noisy, often distorted guitar strums—are the kind of things that you pick up on when experiencing the album through a close listen. And that proximity to the music itself, and the kind of environment that Morris has crafted, lends itself to creating the sense of intimacy that Steel Country has—at times familiar, and almost always welcoming in just how robust and thoughtful of an album it is—one that shows that there is still plenty to say within the genre of “indie rock,” and it does so by finding the space that forms in-between moderate dissonance and subtle beauty. 

^{1- This is just an aside as a point of clarification that I, for a number of years, have no longer considered myself to be “prolific” w/r/r the amount of writing I do, but I guess between the amount of writing I still do, as well as my other endeavors (two podcasts), others in my life would, and often do, argue that I am still rather prolific.}

^{2- Specifically here I am recalling how much time I spent using my morning walks to work in the spring of 2019 listening to Maxo’s Lil Big Man and A Quiet Farwell by Slauson Malone, and was some how able to write at length (at length and thoughtfully for the time) about them without having physical copies of either.} 

^{3- It’s worth noting that when I interviewed Tom Morris of Swim Camp on the Anhedonic Headphones Podcast in 2022, off-mic, he told me the backstory with what occurred regarding his former label and the botched release of Fishing In A Small Boat and it is really anything but circumstances that were unforeseen.}

^{4- The irony of this is not lost: I wrote a review of Blue Cabinet without having a physical copy of it.}

^{5 - Sparklehorse, for argument’s sake, was not exactly an “indie” outfit—three of Mark Linkous’ four albums under the moniker were released through a major label, but they were done so during a time when major labels were still willing to take a risk and sign a project like Sparkhorse—weird, volatile, sometimes inaccessible, and often beautiful and heartbreaking. Sparklehorse’s final album was the only one that was not issued through Capitol Records, but the British imprint Astralwerks that was, at one time, in its earliest days, focused primarily on electronic music.} 

^{6- Codeine in 2012, and Bedhead in 2014.}

Steel Country is out now as a digital download an on cassette via Julia’s War.