SWIM

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How do you eclipse a self-released debut album that topped the charts, sent your live show around the world, and brought in a rapidly growing global fanbase? If you’re Melbourne-born artist SWIM, the answer can only ever be bunker down and push yourself even further. Dear Friend is SWIM’s second LP in as many years, and builds upon the expansive sonic universe he’s been intentionally crafting since breaking out in 2020. It’s a cinematic album to immerse yourself in, perfectly calibrated from start to finish. Or as SWIM puts it: “I had a clear idea of what I wanted to make, and I'm trying not to do it for anyone else other than myself.”

Deep in the recesses of Reddit is a burgeoning thread of dance music obsessives who wonder precisely where SWIM came from - and why he is suddenly showing up everywhere. SWIM finds the notion of his being an overnight success highly amusing. ‘I mean, I’ve been doing this non-stop for five years,’ he says, having released over 50 tracks, including multiple EPs and a full-length during this period. “It’s been slowly building, to the point where shows have doubled in size each time I play.”

Though SWIM started out playing intimate rooms in his hometown, these days he’s more likely to be seen selling out multiple nights at Melbourne’s iconic Forum Theatre or the venerable Koko in London, where he’s now based. That’s before you get to Boiler Rooms and major European festival appearances, not to mention topping the ARIA Dance and Vinyl Charts with his 2024 LP In Circles. What’s more, he’s done it all completely independently, sending music straight into the main veins of his listeners. ‘I love the immediacy of it,’ he says. ‘When a track’s done, I just want to get it to the fans straight away.’

Fostering that direct connection is part of SWIM’s unique appeal. It’s born partly from SWIM’s frustration with the industry, having been trapped in a label deal that he felt stifled his creativity when he was still a teenager. Once he emerged from the other side, SWIM decided only to trust what he describes as his ‘musical compass’, or “not compromising for anyone and making decisions solely based on what I liked and was connected with.” That authenticity has proven itself over and over again, leading SWIM to larger rooms and higher accolades and now to Dear Friend, perhaps the most crystallised expression of what he likes to call ‘emotional dance music.’

Conjured from the depths of London winter and a period of creative stagnation, Dear Friend is one of those rare records designed for nightclub abandon and self-reflection in equal measure. Mixing propulsivity with a cinematic vision, it joins a lineage of seminal Australian electronic releases, which treat the album as something to be singularly held and experienced as a whole. SWIM describes going so granular that each song would be pitched or reworked to flow into the next “so the transitions would work perfectly, which is a little bit crazy. But it does feel like an intentional body of work, because it was made that way.”

Dear Friend is a sonic journey that tracks universal feelings of togetherness and absence, amplified by SWIM pining for his home country. “There’s this duality of discovering a new place and longing for the old one, or even missing a particular person,” he explains. That strain of melancholy is present on songs like ‘Missing You’, haunted by ethereal vocals and skittering drums through to the euphoric abandon of the album’s title track. It’s an expansive suite that never loses its soul, whether it’s subsonic bass and garage snares of ‘Be There For You’ or the blissful harmonic unfurling of ‘Everything You Need’, all of which helps explain why SWIM has made the phrase ‘crying in the club’ his own, a wink at the heightened fervor present in his live shows and recorded output alike.

It should come as little surprise that SWIM is relentlessly detail-oriented when it comes to making music. That’s not just in the crafting of songs themselves, but in the sequencing, tracking, production and ‘world building’ of his work, from artwork to live production and even bringing ballerinas onstage. It also extends to the art of composition; SWIM being an entirely self-taught musician who views every new challenge as a potential further horizon. “I just have to try everything,” he laughs. For proof, just listen to the crescendoing strings on songs like ‘Memories’ and bombastic opener ‘You & Me’, which SWIM arranged himself as part of a long-held vision to record with the Budapest Film Orchestra and bring the music to life. Scoring his music with strings is something that had always been on SWIM’s creative wishlist, and with the sweeping sounds on Dear Friend, he finally found the perfect outlet. “There’s nothing more cinematic or epic than working with strings. I've always loved records that have brought those elements in. So with the scope of this record and songs like Memories in particular, it felt like it was the right time to do it.”

One could reasonably suggest that SWIM doesn’t make things easy for himself, but he would counter that’s what keeps him so prolific. “I feel like if I stop learning and stop doing things that are outside of my comfort zone, it's not going to be exciting for me anymore.” In setting out to create something for himself, he’s crafted a record that captures that pursuit; ambitious, emotional and undoubtedly SWIM.