The New World by Swindle - Sculpturing With Music
- Aug 9, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 17, 2022
Photo: the New World, Swindle
Music Mixologist, Swindle, released the album The New World last year and not enough people are talking about it.
The New World is a collage of musical genres put together collaboratively by a group of artists, such as Maverick Sabre, Greentea Peng and Poppy Ajudha, in just a week. Each artist had their own creative input into this album, whether that's the lyrics to a track or just the backing vocals, this is what makes this album so individually special and unique. Themes such as love, grief and identity run throughout, whilst more specific topics like fatherhood shine in singular songs.
The album kicks off with the track ‘SUNDAY BEST’ featuring, Joel Cullpepper, Knucks and Kojey Radical, it ends with ‘HOW I’VE BEEN’ featuring Loyle Carner, JNR Williams, Joy Crookes and once again, Kojey Radical. Sandwiched between the two tracks, there are seven other songs, each bringing something completely different to our ears.
The pieces for each track are placed together with a number of artists, one example of this is the song ‘LOST’ which features verses from Kojey Radical and Loyle Carner. At first listen, it can be assumed these two are the only artists on the track, although, listening closer to the backing track, you can hear backing vocals from Joy Crookes, and even rhythm sections from Ezra Collective. The collaborative approach this album has taken allows for a vary in genre, we hear elements of jazz, soul, hip-hop and funk through all nine songs, catering to every listener.
The track that stands out most to me is ‘BLOW YA TRUMPET’, featuring Kojey Radical, Ghetts, Knucks and Akala; each verse is approached by a different artist in their own style - by forming each verse like this, as listeners we are taken on a rollercoaster like journey. This song can be compared to tracks such as ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ by Green day, a “Rap” Opera, if you will, it puts the “rap” in Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Knucks begins the track with his hip-hop style rhythm, it then leads into Ghetts' fast, sharp lyricism before easing into Akala’s slightly slow yet equally as sharp flow, the last verse then consists of Kojey Radical’s lazy, relaxed tone of voice. We learn the reasoning for the song’s name as trumpet solos play between each artist, foreshadowing the rhythm of the verse we are about to hear.
Story telling is intertwined with the lyrics throughout The New World. ‘HOW I’VE BEEN’ beautifully tells us about the power of women and the effect of absent fathers with lyrics such as “The fathers in my house were women, put their strength inside of me and their soul in the kitchen”. One lyrically important track is ‘NO BLACK NO IRISH’, it was written around the Black Lives Matter movement and offers a perspective on what it means to those effected by the racism the movements challenges, this radiates through lyrics like, “built an empire off of us, now they call us foreigners”.
A unique feature of this album is the content created around it. Many of the tracks released as singles have their own music videos, but, following the release of the whole album, a short film was made called ‘The New World (Film)’. The near 20 minute video includes eight of the nine tracks. It begins with ‘WHAT MORE’ and shows a collection of the artists performing their songs in differing environments. A standard of elegance and style is portrayed through the video as everyone forms a level of sophistication around their individual style. The video ends on a quote referring to the title of the album, solidifying the project as a whole. This collective music video really ties in all of the songs on the album and creates an open ended story for the listeners to interpret in their own way. By forming a story around the music, the album truly becomes a piece of art rather than just an ensemble of songs and this is what makes Swindle’s work so special.
Another noticeable element of this album is it's cover artwork. The album cover features a cartoon of Swindle in the foreground and ‘superhero’ like cartoons of the rest of the artists behind him. We see these characters in front of what looks to be the gateway opening to heaven, foreshadowing the standard of music on the record.
Swindle has a very broad discography working across the board with different artists, genres and styles, The New World allows him to show off his intimating creativity and level of musical intelligence.
It is one of my all time favourite albums and it saddens me to see how criminally underrated it is. Listen to The New World now and discover a whole new level of art in the form of music.
The New World: Spotify – THE NEW WORLD
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