introducing swanskin & the live echoes
Pique Audio Set to Release First Single by Swanskin and the Live Echoes
Bloomington Record label Pique Audio releasing Swanskin and the Live Echoes Single at Midnight EST on Feb 14
Simultaneous global release on all streaming platforms and cash prizes for Best Song Remix, Best Record Sleeve Art, Best Music Video, and Best Tik-Tok Dance Routine
A timer is already ticking down toward the moment of the single’s release and the start of four participatory contests at www.boxedtime.com
(Bloomington, IN) On Feb 14, locally based record label Pique Audio will release Swanskin And The Live Echoes’ debut single. The song is called ‘While Eating With a Friend, Lean Over and Ask If They Can Talk Cause They Might Be Choking’ and promises to deliver an impressive sound that gathers more and more impetus with each listen, until its individual parts become a whole that is less a song than a complete sensory experience.
Pique Audio and Swanskin and the Live Echoes: A Convergence of Missions
Pique Audio is committed to artistic freedom, a community spirit, and group participation, but this mission is much more than an abstract commitment for Mr. Ramon. In addition to making space for musicians to create meaningful art, the label wants to be a true member of the community. “We hope to create a cycle of great music and community improvement that eventually becomes self-sustaining” Ramon says.
Although Swanskin and the Live Echoes is a creative entity first and foremost, they also encourage group participation and want to keep listeners involved in everything they do as a band. The band is based in Los Angeles, CA and was once thought to be led by frontman and multi-instrumentalist Mo Shirazi. But this is where things start to get a little bit, um, weird.
You see, in multiple interviews, Mr. Shirazi has insisted vehemently that he has no connection to Swanskin and The Live Echoes. In fact, he seemed to grow almost furious at the idea when I interviewed him on the porch of a Los Angles County café that I later learned was only open for that one portentous day. When I asked why he wanted to distance himself from a band as fascinating as the Live Echoes, he moved two tables away and only answered after putting on two additional Covid masks and turning his back on me defiantly.
Finally, through multiple layers of gorgeous purple rayon that I thought had to be very porous, he told me what he referred to as ‘the real deal’ between him and the enigmatic Swanskin. ‘Yes, ‘Yes, I saw them perform on some streaming app last year. And yes, I admit I got a little overly attached to the guy for some reason. But I haven’t seen him since I spoke to the sheriff’s office and I can’t even go within five hundred feet of the guy, much less play in his band.’ The rest is kind of embarrassing, so let’s just say that Shirazi was too distraught to continue and that was the proverbial that.
The comparison is apparently completely irrelevant at this point, but The Live Echoes represent a striking departure from the work of Shirazi’s former band, Blueprint Car Crash (Militia Group), which had a definite experimental, post-hardcore sound that landed them somewhere in the fascinating intersection of bands as diverse as Refused, Talking Heads, and At The Drive-In.
Their publicist Liber Null—who apparently wears a steel mask at all times and claims to be made entirely of unwritten poetry-- characterizes Swanskin and the Live Echoes’ work as a hybrid of ‘shoegaze and 80s new wave/electronic music, with retro drum machines, heavy reverb and delay, and a lot of voice manipulation.’ I didn’t dare disagree with the guy, but this mixture of multiple genres seems to draw, consciously or not, from the likes of My Bloody Valentine and The Weeknd. But in the end, it doesn’t matter how you draw the Live Echoes’ ancestral lines-- the music becomes increasingly complex with each successive listen regardless of context and quickly becomes impossible to categorize. Come to think of it, I’d characterize that entire morning in exactly the same way.
To sum up, whoever this Swanskin cat is or isn’t, it’s clear that he’s not the only one in the Live Echoes who’s discovered musical gold on the other side of humanity. With a cast of unknowns that includes Moseph River on guitar, Andromeda on synth, something called Zephyr A playing bass, and Euclidean in a perfect Asana pose behind the drums, it’s no surprise that this, um, ‘organized fellowship’ has its fans shedding their identities, clothing, and worldly attachments without a second thought after hearing them play even one time.
A Promising Combination
I guess you have to give it to them, total weirdos or not-- Pique Audio seems like the perfect home for Swanskin and his ever-growing troupe of Live Echoes. I say ever growing because I guess I’m in the band now too. In Null’s handsome words, ‘yeah, that’s just gonna happen once you get close enough.’ Anyway, both emphasize listener and community participation and are more concerned with the creation of meaningful art than turning a profit.
So Pique audio, Swanskin, and the man-book Liber Null— all go to great lengths to demonstrate their commitment to community participation. Nowhere is this more evident than in the contests Pique is offering to listeners. Based on the advice of of their publicist, The Echoes are opening their project up to the wider public by encouraging listeners to create a remix of the song, a Tik-Tok dance number, artwork for the record sleeve, and a music video for the oddly seductive single.
Ramon is doing his part by offering cash prizes that total a lucky $777 for these community contributions. The contests, which will be ‘unboxed’ at the same time as the single consist of the following:
$111 for the Best Remix of the single
$111 for the Best Tik-Tok dance routine created in response to the song
$222 for the Best Album Sleeve Artwork
$333 for the Best Music Video
Well, that’s not all I got for you today, but it’s about as much as you deserve to get. Liber Null signing off now and here’s to hoping you get a sniff of the Atman and five minutes with Swanskin someday soon. Until then, maybe you could, I don’t know, become a better person or something.
Contest guidelines and materials available at www.boxedtime.com and www.theLiveEchoes.com.
