There have been a lot of artists trying to jump on the whole “minimalist, instrumentally electronic yet still vaguely R&B” train over the past couple of years, and most of them have simply added a thin, carbon copy layer of what’s come before them onto the top of what’s now just this black hole of faux-pop that gets played endlessly in boutiques and (I imagine) nowhere else.
Anyway, A Good Swim takes up the mantle in that it’s also minimalist, also instrumentally electronic but somehow vaguely R&B. However, it’s not mindless. “Good Swim” reminds me of the kind of work that a much more nuanced Glass Animals might have put out if they had continued the trend they set out in their debut instead of trying to emulate the ‘70s in their sophomore record. What that means is that “Swim Good” is both a hazy little cloud of white noise and a great collage of the kind of markers that modern pop writers try to hit on every song.
The EP’s strongest point is that all of its four tracks manage to be obviously related, while still retaining a distinct flavour.
