Swim Deep return with soaring new track ‘Little Blue’

Swim Deep have returned with ‘Little Blue’, the latest track to emerge from the Birmingham band.

It’s the first track to emerge from the group since Familiarise Yourself With Your Closest Exit, their latest EP which arrived back in March.

Speaking to Rolling Stone UK, frontman Austin Williams explained how the track emerged during the pandemic, when he found himself ditching perceptions and fears about how future music from the band would be received.

“It was made in lockdown and that’s the most boring sentence ever right now,” he told Rolling Stone UK.

“But it felt like an electric track that landed somewhere between Caribou and Swim Deep and I’ve always loved that sort of thing.”

Explaining how he was reluctant to limit the track’s creative potential, he added: “I just thought I’d let it go there, I didn’t want to bring it back to being an indie thing. I was going through a time when I was really persuading myself I shouldn’t be worried about these filters I have. The worry of whether the old Swim Deep fans would like it. Whether the new Swim Deep fans would like it. I just thought let the song be itself and do its thing “I’ve got 100 of songs that have never seen the light of day, so it feels good to put this out there.”

While offering an electronic-twinged twist on Swim Deep’s sound, the track also sees the band collaborating with producer Dreamtrak – who they previously enlisted on early single ‘King City’.

But, Williams adds, it isn’t representative of Swim Deep’s future going forward.

“It’s nothing like our new album which I’ve been writing recently, which is a whole guitar record. We wanted to put something out there,” he said.

“We’ve had a demo session with The Coral’s Bill Ryder-Jones. He was just a vibesman, but he was giving us his wisdom and it felt like we were in the hands of greatness.”

This latest track also comes nine years after Swim Deep released their debut album Where the Heaven Are We, while the B-Town scene was at its very height. It was the collective term for a number of bands who emerged from Birmingham at the time and developed burgeoning cult popularity. As well as Swim Deep, other key players included Peace, Jaws and Superfood. And almost ten years on, is the spirit of B-Town still alive?

“The moment Zane Lowe said B-Town, it was kinda over. By no fault of Zane Lowe, it was genius to call a scene what it was. But by the time we started getting played on the radio and there was label interest, we were out of Birmingham. We were on tour doing this and that. Jaws held it down in Birmingham for a bit, but that’s why they’re so big in Birmingham now. I love everyone’s music and all of that output.

But the scene was pre all that. We were making music, just going out and doing all sorts of hedonistic behaviour and telling each other how much we were going to make it and go to LA. And we did! But that was the moment it was over. We’ve still got a love of Birmingham though, and we still try to give as much back as we can.”

Today (September 1st) also sees Swim Deep announce a short UK tour for this November. You can check the dates out in full here.