Sex Swing

Organ Thing of the Day – Sex Swing released one of the finest albums or recent times back there in 2016, we said so in rather enthusiastic fashion at the time, and then got on with things and to be frank didn’t ever get around to actually buying a copy or ever thinking that much about Sex Swing again other then spotting their name listed as support on the bill at an unaffordable gig now and again, I guess if there has been a physical copy to hand it would have been played, but we’re swamped by the next release and the next link and I’d almost forgotten about the brooding menace of Sex Swing even though that first album was so damn good. I tell you this because today, as wel las questioning if we need to actually bother writing about bands and music in the way we once did, that and the fact that in the over crowded in-box full of links anddemands ot go listen to this that and the other there’s a message about a new track that seems a little undercooked until you really let it flow at you and you give in anf let it take you with it, that and news of a second album. Here’s the track, and underneath the track is the news… .

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Here, for what it be worth, is that Organ review of the first album –   ORGAN THING: Sex Swing’s debut album; claustrophobic, hypnotic, brooding, full-bodied, this is a big sound, a vital thing…

And here’s the press release and the hype that landed today….

SEX SWING
ANNOUNCE THEIR NEW ALBUM – TYPE II
OUT ON ROCKET RECORDINGS – 15 MAY 2020
LIVE DATES IN MAY / JUNE INCLUDING LONDON’S CORSICA STUDIOS
SEX SWING have announced details of a new album, Type II, out on vinyl, CD and digitally on Rocket Recordings on 15 May 2020. The album release will be followed by a European tour with dates in London, Brighton, Manchester and Newcastle – full details below.

Type II is the follow up to 2016’s self-titled debut, listen to the first track, ‘Valentine’s Day at the Gym’, just up there

“In the realms of heavy amplification and monstrous riffage, one crucial ingredient can make the difference between an outfit doggedly hammering away at their chosen art and another whose graft is alchemically transformed into something of compelling fury and primal satisfaction. That ingredient is malevolence, pure and simple; the sense that something authentically vicious and debauched is going on at the root of the racket assaulting the sensibilities. Needless to say, Sex Swing – the London-based group whose mercurial and uncompromising onslaught now sees its second iteration to the wider world – have no shortage of this elixir.

Since their foundation in 2014, this rogues gallery of luminaries of the UK underground have consistently proven to be capable of projecting vibrations that transcend and usurp any idea of the sum of their component parts. It is true that they’ve clocked up notable experience sparking tinnitus with everyone from Mugstar and Bonnacons of Doom (bassist Jason Stoll) to Dethscalator (vocalist Dan Chandler and drummer Stuart Bell) and from Earth (guitarist Jodie Cox, who also introduced keyboard player Ollie Knowles to the melee) to a dizzying variety of endeavours from the paint-stripping skronk of Dead Neanderthals to the righteous ire of Idles (all via saxophonist Colin Webster).

Yet Sex Swing represents less a group of disparate musicians pooling their resources, and more a peculiar spark of collective chemistry, with all forces gravitating towards the pursuit of the same dissolute and mysterious goal. Type II – recorded by Martin Ruffin at Hastings’ Savage Studios and mixed at Bear Bites Horse by Wayne Adams – is that goal reached in effortless style and amplified to intimidating aural vistas.

This mighty monument of swagger and malice also sees fit to add a certain amount of glitter to the trademark grit this time around. Just as the artwork from long-term collaborator Alex Bunn boasts a luminous sheen absent from the unsettling abjection of the sleeve of their 2016 debut on The Quietus Phonographic Corporation, so the rolling grooves and mantric hypnosis here boast a new-found structure and a feline sleekness fresh and unusual for this pugilistic outfit, just as Chandler’s brooding presence disguises a twisted lyricism.

Nonetheless, this remains a band fundamentally obsessed with the expression of decadence and wrongdoing through the mediums of repetition and overloaded frequencies. Opener ‘The Passover’ hits like hammer to skull right from the off, a relative moment of calm soon being broken by an ungodly squall of horror from Webster’s sax, before a fearsome and naggingly catchy debacle ensues akin to Suicide grappling with downers in dancefloor rapture.

Elsewhere, rock abjection is filtered notably through an electronic prism, as krautrock grace and garage brawn engage in a strangely beguiling wrestling match to the death – ‘Valentine’s Day At The Gym’ is this vision at its apotheosis, rising like a Birthday Party-esque phoenix from the ashes of bad decisions and late nights – a tapestry of croon and warped groove that gathers momentum and power on a pathway to a particularly handsome kind of oblivion.

Type II is more than the mere machinations of a rock band – it’s a howl of malfunction rendered terrifyingly visceral. It’s the lightning flash and unearthly roar of the primeval battle between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla that provokes awe and disquiet in the realm of fantasy, It’s the haunted clangour of the faulty air conditioning unit that lurks in the anonymous office building yet lends it eerie ambience. It’s man vs machine where discord becomes harmony, and it’s a fearsomely invigorating spectacle to behold”.

SEX SWING LIVE
22 May – BE / Kortrijk / The Pits
23 May – NL – Amsterdam / Occii
24 May – BE / Antwerp – Het Bos
26 May – Fr / Paris – Les Instants Chavirès
27 May – FR / Strasbourg / Venue to be announced
28 May – NL – Den Hague / Paard
29 May – BE / Bruxelles / Magasin4
30 May – UK / London – Corsica Studios (w/ Pharaoh Overlord)
4 June – UK / Brighton / The Hope & Ruin
5 June – UK / Manchester – White Hotel (Rocket Recordings Showcase)
6 June – UK / Newcastle – The Cluny

SEX SWING ON FACEBOOK