Swansea Sound – Live at the Rum Puncheon – CD Released 19/11/21

Description

Swansea Sound started in the middle of lockdown. They realised that fast, loud, joyous, angry indiepop punk was the answer to being stuck indoors. Who needs introspection?Hue Williams is reunited with Pooh Sticks partner Amelia Fletcher (ex- Talulah Gosh, Heavenly). Rob Pursey (also ex-Heavenly) and Ian Button (Wreckless Erics live collaborator) provide the noise. Swansea Sound are the fast, acerbic and joyous past, present and future of of the tracks were released as singles, all of them now impossible to obtain. Corporate Indie Band was a limited edition cassette, I Sold My Soul on eBay was a one-off lathe cut that got auctioned on eBay (with a winning bid), Indies of the World was a 7 inch single that briefly hit the UK physical charts, but immediately sold out and plummeted back out again. And then there was Swansea Sound: a requiem for a lost radio station; an anti-corporate lament – another limited edition cassette track Rock N Roll Void gives a three minute revision session, just in case youve forgotten about The Ramones, The Kinks, The Buzzcocks and the brief explosion of indie noise pollution of 1986. Some of the songs are reflexive Swansea Sound and The Pooh Sticks. (Who else was going to write a tribute to The Pooh Sticks?) Others are searching for hope in the digital desert Let It Happen, Im OK When Youre Around, Pasadena, Angry Girl. Je Ne Sais Quoi is pure pop throwaway fun. The others songs are dead catchy too, they just happen to express a sickness and a contempt for the state of things. Corporate Indie Band is about a group who have mortgaged their creativity to a major label and sold their identities to an online marketing team of public schoolboys. Freedom of Speech takes a look at three contemporary alternative music stars and considers how theyve responded to BLM, the pandemic and the rise of right-wing populism. Like self-serving arseholes, is the unfortunate answer. (You wont struggle to work out who the three alternative stars are.)Swansea Sound took their name from a well-loved local radio station when it was given a corporate makeover in 2020. They even used the radio stations abandoned logo. Like the indiepunk pop songs, something modern acidic and angry has taken up residence in a familiar, borrowed frame. You can throw yourself around to Swansea Sound like its 1986, but if you catch the lyrics youll remember youre in 2021. (Sorry about that.)The Rum Puncheon, a notorious pub in Swansea, closed down decades ago.