Swimmer One: Comments

Why does Hamish never write blogs?

If, like me, you possessed the secret codes to this website, you would know that Hamish, my songwriting partner in Swimmer One, does actually write blogs on occasion. He just never finishes them, so never posts them.

This is a source of constant amusement to me, since it is so typical of our working relationship. We initially began writing songs together after we met, got talking, and each learned an interesting thing about the other, namely…

1. I had recorded hundreds of songs on my own (about 20 hours’ worth in total), all of which I regarded as finished, but which mostly sounded rubbish because of a combination of lack of patience and technical incompetence (I may post some of the more listenable examples on this site one day). All had lyrics and titles. I could play piano but not guitar. I liked singing.

2. Hamish had recorded hundreds of fragments of songs, but had never developed them because he was determined to learn how to produce them properly, or something, before he presented them to the world. He didn’t regard any of them as finished. None had lyrics or titles. He could play guitar but not piano. He had no interest in singing.

Swimmer One have prospered partly due to this complete absence of skills and ambition overlap.

Here, for those who are interested, is how this works in the studio. If you’re not very interested in that, and just want me to get to the bloody point, skip the next three paragraphs.

HOW WE WORK IN THE STUDIO

Hamish comes up with some fragments of music, usually brilliant, but fails to finish them. I tell him they’re brilliant, and that if we put this bit with this other bit and I wrote a lyric and a melody and maybe added a middle eight or put one of Hamish’s bits in a slightly different place it’d be even more brilliant, and would actually be finished. We probably bicker a bit. We eat toast or soup. We make stupid jokes, or talk about how great Roxy Music/Talking Heads/David Bowie are.

I then come up with a title. Hamish doesn’t like it. I come up with another title. Hamish does like it. I write some lyrics and a melody. Hamish politely suggests that a few bits of lyrics don’t work and that the melody should be slightly different. I get really offended and grumble and argue/don’t mind because he’s right and my ideas were rubbish. We arrange the song together. I play keyboard a bit and sing a guide vocal, probably with far too many harmony parts, all of which are off key. Hamish plays guitar, makes lots of mistakes and I say ‘yes, that bit’s good.’ Or ‘no, that’s from a Roxy Music record.’

We bicker a bit more. We eat more soup. We make more stupid jokes, or talk about Brian Eno. Hamish plays me a bit of music by some German electronica dude who he’d quite like this song to sound like. The process then gets very fiddly, involving programming and stuff, and I completely lose interest and disappear for weeks at a time, during which time Hamish obsessively tweaks every single sound until he’s gone slightly loopy from lack of sleep and it still isn’t finished. I come back and generally fail to notice what he’s actually changed. He points out all the things he’s changed. I go ‘oh, I see’, tell him it’s brilliant, and ask him when he thinks it’ll be finished. Hamish is vague. Several months later we have made a record.

THE BLOODY POINT

The point is, it is no surprise to me to discover that this website has ended up operating in roughly the same way, in that Hamish does the technical side of things (stops it exploding etc) and I mostly write the words for it. Whenever it doesn’t work, I phone him up and he tells me lots of stuff about servers and code that I don’t understand, and then fixes it.

Ah, people say when I tell him this, so you’re a typical flamboyant ponce/silent boffin electronic pop duo set-up, then? Well, sort of. Hamish is, in many ways, Chris Lowe to my Neil Tennant, or Vince Clarke to my Andy Bell, or Dave Stewart to my Annie Lennox, or Alan Rankine to my Billy Mackenzie. Not that we are claiming to be in the same league as the above, but you get the point.

But we are not complete stereotypes. I am currently trying to improve my technical skills so that I can start putting photos up on this site etc, and perhaps some MP3s of the aforementioned sloppily produced Andrew demos. I would also like to be able to programme synths and drum machines rather than have to make weird humming noises with my mouth in order to illustrate to Hamish how I’d like a song to sound, which he then has to try and emulate (’it should sound like water rushing through a telephone line - like ggrrrmmpphhhhooooch - can you make that?’) It is an uphill struggle, but I hope one day to be at least a semi-boffin, if not a fully fledged one.

Meanwhile, to prove that Hamish is not an utterly silent, machine-like studio geek, I’m going to post one of his unfinished blogs here. You’ll notice it’s several months out of date now, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that he’s never, ever going to finish it, and I think it’s quite entertaining reading, and an insight into the personality of this very warm, funny, generous, talented and frequently quite talkative man, without whom I’d probably never have managed to record, let alone release, anything remotely listenable. If you want to know what Hamish is like, read this. Given that he spends most of our stage appearances standing stock still in complete silence (he talks to me before and after, honest), it might be your only chance to get to know him.

I haven’t told him I’m doing this. Once he notices he may remove it from the site in a huff - he is a perfectionist in everything, even blogs - so read it now while it’s still here…

Andrew

THE RARELY FELT FEELING OF GENUINE FEAR

Hello. Writing this on Christmas Eve, holed up in the woods in my thermal underwear for a week for the Christmas hols, and, significantly, without a guitar, a synth or an internet connection as a distraction, which is, i’ll be the first to admit, the key reason this rare posting from me is happening at all. Andrew’s regular quality posting here puts me to shame. Sorry. Somewhat unimaginatively, i’m going to contribute in the form of the traditional end of year review, which may have limited interest to the reading public, but hopefully some pictures will help you get through it. Stick with me people.

Spent most of the beginning of 2007 mixing The Regional Variations with Andrew at Mission Hall Studios, Edinburgh with James Locke, who we’ve worked with on all our releases to date. We made quick progress once we got into a good working method, and somehow managed to pull off a rare feat of actually being really happy with the album. I’ve known so many musicians and bands to finish a project and be left with albums they don’t like themselves, and are then faced with the task of having to promote something they don’t believe in, so i’m really pleased we managed to avoid this. The heady diet of bananas, shortbread, oatcakes and military quantities of tea kept us going throughout.

After emerging, pale and blinking, from the pop-machine bunker into the crisp Spring sunshine, we handed the album over to Mastering Engineer Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering, who did a great job again and is also one of the nicest men you could hope to meet. The album artwork was put together by Daniel Warren. Everyone we speak to about the album comments on how much they like the artwork, and rightly so as it is fantastic. People like the artwork so much we get requests for a vinyl pressing, which we’d love to do and may still yet. So thank you Daniel - for upstaging our songs with your brilliant artwork. You are in good company however, as they only other person to upstage us is Morrissey, who managed to blow us offstage at the Metro in London simply by being in the audience.

The album has gone down really well. It’s been getting great reviews pretty much across-the-board and tracks are getting picked up by radio. Thanks to anyone whose e-mailed in with their feedback especially they guy in Sheffield who emailed one night at 2am telling us he was chucking a sickie the next day after listening to it 5 times in a row going for a sixth.

Other Swimmer One highights this year have been the show we played with John Foxx in Glasgow. Meeting someone who’s work you respect and admire can be good as a mere starstruck fanboy experience, but finding them to be a really friendly person in addition to being icon of music is great. The very welcome addition of Laura to the Swimmer One live show, with her synth expertise and vocal prowess, has been the biggest and best new thing this year, and the two shows we played in London and Edinburgh were great fun. 2007 was the year we finally figured out that taking the train to London gigs is the best way to do things. We spent most other spare time writing a lot of new songs and should have another album ready by the end of the summer.

The rest of 2007’s highlights in no particular order ...

Lots of walking. Celebrated my Dad’s 60th by walking the 26 miles of the Lairig Gru with him and my brother in the May sunshine - incorporating the most haute-cuisine packed lunch involving real ale, smoked salmon, duck pate, 2 types of cheese and malt whisky. Walking round a deserted Loch Eilidh in Cairngorms with my lovely wife. Walking through the other-wordly terrain of the Quaraing in Staffin, Skye, Scotland with my friend Stevie and Sam (aged 8) and shouting into the thick mist echo chamber. An Alpine walk up Pizzo Zuchero, Onsernone Valley, Ticino, Switzerland after cable car up to 4000m and some high altitude cheese with friends, who also let me get away with wearing some shorts which would pass for lederhosen at 100 paces. The perfect walk on a perfect summer day up the Eildon Hills and along the river in Melrose, Scotland with friends. Birthday walk up Bidean Nam Beann and down the Lost Valley, Glencoe, Scotland with friends in Springtime - relying on a rough sketch printed from the internet and feeling the rarely felt feeling of genuine fear. Family walking trip along the St Cuthbert’s Way, Borders, Scotland for two days - and not seeing anyone else along the way. Walking through Weem Wood, Perthshire, Scotland at dawn in the summer.

Best objects purchased or found: Finding a Belstaff Trailmaster jacket in good condition at a fair price. Country Life book of British Wildlife - £2 in Callandar bookshop. The brilliant Canon Selphy photo printer has saved me endless trips back and forth to photo labs. Getting my Grandad’s old Leica m2 camera back into usage again and photos from it looking great. A pair of 21oz heavy duty denim jeans. Artec big dots tuner. A new pair of Meindle walking boots after my old ones of 15 year vintage were laughed out of the boot repair shop.

Gigs: Battles and Dirty Projectors, Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh - with my friend Dave who i’ve known since i was 8 and we swapped Queen albums. Refreshingly to see a band both work up a sweat onstage through effort and also perform something complicated that clearly takes a lot of effort to get right. Then, realising that actually this is only refreshing because we’re now so used to musicians looking like wht they are doing is easy (which for most 4 chord-pop, it is) Essentially bringing the performance aesthetics of jazz or prog to rock/indie/alternative. I like their album Mirrored, and Atlas is rightly song of the year everywhere this year, but more than actually liking their music, i like the fact that they - a jazz-influenced, virtually vocal-free, musically pretty-challenging combination of Tortoise, Fugazi and Mahavishnu Orchestra - are successful - and not just to musos/beards/boys, which often is the limited appeal of this type of thing, but to an audience ranges across the sex, age and hipster divides. Warp and Battles - i salute you and your marketing.

Von Sudenfed, Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh. Sonic Youth, ABC, Glasgow. Faust with Mick Flower-Chris Corsano duo, Bongo Club, Edinburgh. Terry Riley performing In C and other pieces, Usher Hall, Edinburgh. The band i saw most this year however were Buffallo Buffallo Buffallo Buffallo Buffallo, aka my friends Mike and Neil - a duo who make minimal drone-based music utilising guitar, cello and sometimes electronics and who perform in primarily non-mainstream venues.

Albums: Low - Drums and Guns, The Field - From Here We Go Sublime. Shady Bard - From The Ground Up. Von Sudenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions. Fennesz and Sakamoto, Cendre. Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls. Tarwater - Spider Smile. !!! - Myth Takes.

Singles: Moan (Radio Slave Instrumental Mix). The Leopard (Extrawelt Remix)

Cinema and TV: Renting DVDs through the post. The Singing Ringing Tree, Nico Icon, The Devil And Daniel Johnson, bits of the Heimat trilogy. At the cinema: Das Leben de Anderen, Scott Walker - 30th Century Man, The Bourne Ulimatum. Atonement. TV: Peep Show. Saxondale. In The Night Garden. Day Of The Triffids (80s TV series) on BBC4. Stephen Fry night on BBC4.

Books: Waterlog - Roger Deakin. One Train Later - Andy Summers. Status Envy - Alain de Botton. Millenium People - J.G Ballard. The Secret History - Donna Tart.

Internet: iamnotthebeatles. ILM. MusicThing. Submit Response. Mainly BBC radio player.

Radio: Rob Da Bank, Late Junction, Proms on R3, Daniel Miller’s Happy Hour on Radio Eins, The Freak Zone, The Essential Mix. Jon Ronson on R4. In Our Time as podcasts on R4. The Record Producers series on Radio 2.

Mixes: Optimo Pitchfork Mix, Eric Prydz Essential Mix, Trentemoller Essential Mix

Software: Expression Engine, Your Mailing List Provider, Pianoteq, Wiretap

Art: John Soane’s House in London with Andrew, Naoko Shibuya, Amber Roome, Edinburgh. Cutting Edge | Geometry in Art 1910-1965 at Modern, Edinburgh, Douglas Gordon, Superhumanatural, National Galleries, Edinburgh. Hill Jephson Robb, Wonder, Portobello Beach, Edinburgh. Marcus Coates, Baltic, Newcastle.

Food: Duck Confit at Spoon, Edinburgh. Breakfast at Balgonie House, Ballater. Birthday lunch of Sardines and blue potatoes at La Garrigue, Edinburgh. Late-night Thai food in Soho with Andrew and friends. A whole John Dory fish for lunch in Skye with my lovely wife. My friend Stevie’s chicken outside in Skye. Stovies in Dunkeld. Indian at Kalpna, Edinburgh.

Other highlights: My ancient bike lock refusing to unlock whilst chaining my bike to some railings. After seeking advice from pal in bike shop i phoned the fire service who agreed to come round with bolt-cutters for a standard fee of £60. Me expecting a car and at most, with two guys to operate said bolt-cutters and instead being sent out an entire fire engine with 6 fireman in full uniform and helmets. I almost asked for a go behind the wheel and a souvenir picture.

Completely missing all of the Edinburgh festival and going to the Alps instead.

Attending an 80th birthday lunch for a family member and them being mentally more sharp than me or anyone else there.

Brilliant firework display, bonfire and pink burgers-tartare in Langholm (seemingly exempt from health and safety)

Exploring the disused railway tracks of East Lothian by bike.

Re-introducing traditional unsanitised versions of Halloween games. ducking for apples necessitating actual submersion of the head in a bucket of cold water and not, as has become common practice in softer households, spearing them with a fork. Eating gingerbread covered in treacle off a washing line outside in October in Scotland. And it’s rock-hard turnips, not pumpkins, for the lanterns by the way whilst we’re on this subject.

Friends doing well this year. My friend Gill ran the New York Marathon and trained throughout high altitude trip in the Alps. My brother setting up in making furniture. Friend writing a book and it making the Booker longlist. Lots of friends getting married and procreating.

Swimming off beach midsummer at Staffin Island, Skye, Scotland, and in both an Alpine river at altitude and a futuristic lido in Lugano, Switzerland.

Finally getting some decent winter cycling gear/lights and cycling at night a lot.

Hamish

Permalink • Save in De.li.cious

"High altitude cheese"-now there’s a phrase you don’t see everyday!
Fascinating read-both Andrew and Hamish,thank you so much for your eternal wit,wisdom and inspiration to this spare-bedroom recording artist.

Posted by Logan 5 on 05/18 at 08:20 PM
...aw shucks… *blush*
thanks for the lovely mention. you guys rock. or bleep.

xL

Posted by laura Cameron Lewis on 05/19 at 02:33 PM
I write blogs!

Posted by Abel on 06/21 at 11:07 AM

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