06/02/2008

Richard Swift

As Onasis 1 & 2

 

(Secretly Canadian) www.secretlycanadian.com

 

 

 

After the sepia-toned Nilsson shout-out that was 2007’s Dressed Up for the Letdown, something less Tin Pan Alley-ish and more lo-fi primal seemed probable for Richard Swift. Dressed Up was a charming clusterfuck. So is this double EP dose – at the very least, it’s debonair despite its noisiness. But the clumps of Onasis come across as holy rock ‘n’ rolly; dirty and 50s-ish with tips of the greasy grungy hat to Link Wray and Eddie Cochran as well as Swift’s usual models in dub honky-tonk and odd pop. But the echo-flexing guitar mind-melds of “The German” and its slower, slinkier counterparts in “Greaseball Blues” present Swift not as a man of many masks, but as a deep genre-fucker. That’s a compliment. His noodling jazz (“Opt 1”) and spy-ska (“Du(m)b 1”) show an experimentalism as rad as Dressed Up’s harmonies were sweet. And Swift grinds deeply – no matter what pipe he’s laying.

 

Standout Tracks: “The German,” “Greaseball Blues” A.D. AMOROSI


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