When Scottish producer Barry Can’t Swim first arrived he was often labelled with a jazz-house tag. Naturally, outlets need labels – and that’s particularly prevalent in dance music – but it felt reductive, often limiting, given the perpetually shifting nature of creative evolution at play in his music.
Debut album ‘When Will We Land’ shatters all that, a disparate yet curiously unified experience. Out on October 20th, it extends outwards, while also reinforcing the aspects that make Barry Can’t Swim such a unique voice in electronic music.
Take new single ‘How It Feels’. In a way, it goes further than ever to justify that jazz-house tag – the neat piano chords at the start, the lush, Moodymann-esque textures, and that vocal, so soulful in a manner that recalls those Chicago and New Jersey greats.
Yet it’s also much more than that. The emotional pull is palpable, the after-hours feel putting you in mind of those moments at the house party when the room pauses, suddenly realising that the sun has come up and a new day is starting.
He comments…
When I first started this song it was intended to be a segue between tracks, more of a breather on the album that helped the overall fluidity, but when I handed the album in I realised it was one of my favourite songs on there and I wanted it to be a single.
The whole thing was started and finished in about two hours. Sometimes the best tunes are the ones that feel the most effortless and you’re just channelling something you’re not even that aware of and then you listen back and you’re like, ok I actually think that’s done!
Tune in now.
Photo Credit: Henry Gorse
