swim~ is a record label founded in 1993, and jointly run, by Wire

Wire (band)

Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...

 guitarist and singer Colin Newman

Colin Newman

Colin Newman is an English musician, record producer and record label owner.-Biography:Newman is a member of the rock band Wire. When the band temporarily split in 1980, Newman pursued a solo career. His first solo LP, A-Z, was released in 1980 on the Beggar's Banquet label...

, and Minimal Compact

Minimal Compact

Minimal Compact were an Israeli rock band associated with the post punk and indie rock movement of the 1980s.-Biography:Between its foundation in 1981 and its dissolution seven years later, Minimal Compact played a small role in the European rock scene...

 bass player and singer Malka Spigel

Malka Spigel

Malka Spigel is a founding member of the Israeli rock band Minimal Compact. She has also worked as a solo artist, and as a visual artist, exhibiting in prominent venues such as The Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Royal Festival Hall...

. The label has published various solo projects and collaborations by Spigel and Newman, most notably Githead

Githead

Githead is a musical collaboration that includes Wire's Colin Newman as well as electronic musician Robin Rimbaud alongside ex-Minimal Compact members Malka Spigel and Max Franken.- Biography :...

, a group formed on the occasion of the label's tenth anniversary, as well as music by a number of indie

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

 bands such as Ronnie and Clyde, Lobe and Silo.

Founding

Spigel and Newman met when Newman produced a record by Spigel's band Minimal Compact. They launched the swim~ label after they married and started a family: "We have a young child. We had a stark choice when he was born, as we were both in touring bands, between being absentee parents or finding a way to work together while bringing up a child. We chose the latter." Abandoning conventional song formats, they found that ambient music

Ambient music

Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...

 and techno

Techno

Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...

 lent themselves to working from their home studio. "In the beginning, we tried to make some song/electronic hybrid", they told CMJ New Music. "We felt tied down by the song structure, and broke free of that with Immersion" – a "Spigel/Newman instrumental electronic collaboration" which released an album titled Oscillating as well as a series of remixes by a number of techno artists.

Music output

swim~ began by publishing "understated, neo-minimalist electronic music", its first two releases being Rosh Ballata by Spigel and Tree by Oracle. Billing itself as a "post-everything" label it boasted what Dusted Magazine described as "a diverse group of musicians working primarily at the atmospheric, melodic end of the electronic spectrum [...], often operating at the interface of digital and organic musics, bringing traces of a rock sensibility – as well as traditional rock instrumentation – to bear on their electronica"; their musical output ran "the stylistic gamut from beatless soundscapes to relatively conventional song-based pop to beat-heavy grooves". The label published several samplers of its work, beginning with Water Communication in 1997, which was followed by Swim Team #1 in 2000 and Swim Team #2 in 2003. These featured swim~ acts such as Symptoms (Klaus Ammitzbøll), Ronnie and Clyde, Lobe, and Danish trio Silo in addition to Newman and Spigel and their son Ben a.k.a. "Bumpy".

In 2004, Newman and Spigel established Githead

Githead

Githead is a musical collaboration that includes Wire's Colin Newman as well as electronic musician Robin Rimbaud alongside ex-Minimal Compact members Malka Spigel and Max Franken.- Biography :...

, comprising Newman and Spigel along with electronic artist Robin Rimbaud

Robin Rimbaud

Robin Rimbaud is an electronic musician who works under the name Scanner due to his use of cell phone and police scanners in live performance...

, who had contributed to the Immersion remix project and done much to encourage swim~ in its early days; they were joined in 2005 by Minimal Compact drummer Max Franken

Max Franken

Max Franken was the drummer for Minimal Compact, an Israeli rock band that achieved success outside the country. He is also a member of Githead along with Colin Newman, Robin Rimbaud and fellow Minimal Compact member Malka Spigel.-External links:*...

. Githead saw the label move towards a more guitar-based sound. The group was originally meant to be a one-off live act for the label's tenth anniversary celebration, but developed into a touring and recording act when Spigel, Newman and Rimbaud first jammed together in preparation for the event and realised that "we had a band". The group's first EP Headgit was written, recorded and mixed in the swim~ studio in London and was followed by the albums Profile (2005), Art Pop (2007) and Landing (2009), all released through the swim~ label.

Reception

The 2000 Swim Team #1 sampler was positively reviewed in NME, achieving an 8 out of 10 rating. The 2003 Swim Team #2 sampler was described by Dusted Magazine as "a near-perfect sampler", offering "both quantity and quality and introduc[ing] listeners to an array of exciting musicians. If, by the end of the CD, your interest isn't piqued and you don't feel the need to seek out further material by some of these artists, then you may need your ears syringed."

Interviews and writings

• "Production Lines: Colin Newman". Article by Colin Newman on swim~ published in Sound on Sound
  Sound on Sound
  Sound on Sound is an independently-owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, UK. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, and interviews with industry professionals...
  
  music magazine (May 1994)
• The Creative Process: Interview Series. Colin Newman interviewed by Aaron Prevots, Ph. D., Southwestern University
  Southwestern University
  Southwestern University is a private, four-year, undergraduate, liberal arts college located in Georgetown, Texas, USA. Founded in 1840, Southwestern is the oldest university in Texas. The school is affiliated with the United Methodist Church although the curriculum is nonsectarian...
  
  

Associated acts

• Colin Newman
• Malka Spigel

• Earth (Newman & Spigel)
• Immersion (Newman & Spigel)
• Intens (Newman & Spigel)
• Oscillating (Newman & Spigel)

• Githead (Newman, Spigel, Rimbaud, Franken)
• Oracle (Newman, Spigel, Samy Birnbach)

• Akatombo
• dol-lop
• g-man
• Lobe
• Pablo's Eye
• Ronnie & Clyde
• Silo
• Symptoms (Klaus Ammitzbøll)

External links

• Official site
• swim ~ on MySpace
  MySpace
  Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....