<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Swim School – Hecklilng and COVID didn’t stop them.</figcaption></figure>



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Swim School with their first gig at TRNSMT Festival 2023 – recorded by BBC Radio Scotland on July 10, 2023.

Swim School were formed in late 2018 in Edinburgh. Initially comprising Alice Johnson, Lewis Bunting, Matt Mitchell, and Nairn Milne, they released their debut single, “Sway”, in February 2019.^[3] Their debut performance was in Galashiels, took place in March 2019, and was a support slot for Indigo Velvet, another Edinburgh-based band. In October 2020, Johnson stated that their set had been marred by a “40-something stranger” heckling sexist abuse at Johnson before and during the performance, prompting her to struggle to hold back tears while performing and to break down after leaving.^[4] They released their second single, “Take You There”, the following June. Swim School spent around a year gigging until the COVID-19 lockdown caused the band to concentrate on writing. Indigo Velvet’s guitarist Billy McMahon was invited to join the band in June 2020 after a period of him assisting with live streams.

The band released an EP, Volume 1, in 2021, and then the single “Let Me Inside Your Head” that March. By May, Milne had left the band. That month, they released the single “Outside”, their first without Milne and performed a cover version of Taylor Swift‘s “Love Story” for a BBC live session.^[5] “Outside” was written about cutting toxic people out of their lives, while “Love Story” was added after the band decided to incorporate a cover into the set and rummaged through some Spotify playlists^] The following month, they released “Anyway” and announced their second EP, Making Sense of It All, which comprised tracks about Johnson’s mental state over lockdown and was released in August 2021.

After releasing Making Sense of It All, Swim School spent a period gigging. By June 2022, the band were signed to LAB Records; by that November, the band comprised Johnson, Bunting, and McMahon. That month, they released the single “Kill You”,  which Johnson had written the previous February about being comfortable enough in a relationship to show quirks.  In February 2023, they announced their second EP Duality and released the single “Delirious”. Duality, which had been recorded at Narcissus Studios in London and produced by Iain Berryman, took its title from the fact that it comprised love songs and angry songs,  while Johnson wrote “Delirious” in a fit of rage after suffering from constant misogyny from sound engineers during festival season.  A further single, “Don’t Leave Me Behind”, was released in April 2023,^[19] with Duality released in June 2023.

As always, thanks Wikipedia for the background – I’m not lazy, just overwhelmed at times.

Press Play and dive in – see you tomorrow.

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