Big Swimmer＜Ocean Blue Vinyl＞

With their 2022 debut album, King Hannahs Hannah Merrick and Craig Whittle showcased a lush and melancholy sync-friendly sound that met somewhere near the crossroads of influences like Mazzy Star and Portishead, the spookiness of Twin Peaks, and noise rock. Big Swimmer finds them stealthily expanding into haunted folk and proto- and post-punk (think the Velvet Underground and Speedy Wunderground) without leaving their established sonic space behind. While the shifts are relatively subtle, the payoff is substantial, with a large portion of the credit going to the adventurous qualities -- and the quality -- of the songs themselves. A recording process that involved tracking the album live in a single room with producer Ali Chant (Aldous Harding, PJ Harvey) should also be taken into account. The song "Big Swimmer" opens the album in theatrical fashion, with a count-off and strummed acoustic guitar preceding Merricks cabaret-folk-style explanation of her courageous approach to swimming and to life ("Ill dive in my head first thing"), under an imagined spotlight. When the electric guitar, rhythm section, and Sharon Van Ettens guest backing vocals kick in around the two-minute mark, its as if the stage lights come up and were off. This stagey impression, certainly aided by the albums live tracking, never ebbs on Big Swimmer, as the band move through the punkier, spoke-sung "New York, Lets Do Nothing" ("And you said, Hey girl, are you doin good?/And I said, Hell, yeah, am I doin good/Cause I feel good when I am in New York"); the slinkier, ominous "The Mattress"; and the suspenseful, slow-as-molasses "Suddenly, Your Hand" which, at over seven minutes in length, is followed by the over-eight-minute "Somewhere in El Paso." Multiple lengthy, delay-heavy guitar solos into the track list, this is only the halfway point. The back half of Big Swimmer includes but is not limited to the shuffling, grungy "Lily Pad" (memorable for its repeated line, "I think Im going insane"); the boppier "Davey Says," which borders on classic girl-boy indie pop; and a twangier return by Van Etten on the inebriated "This Wasnt Intentional." Thats before the album closes on the cinematic folk-rock entry "John Prine on the Radio," the closest thing here to a singalong. (Bill Callahan is mentioned elsewhere on the record.) While Big Swimmer isnt especially hooky or melodic or cathartic, it is mesmerizing, and performed with an actors command of an audience, a playwrights turn of phrase, and an expert sense of guitar tones -- as well as an enviable, intangible coolness. ~ Marcy Donelson