Austin Swearengin
JB (Dulcimer on "Dear Winter")
Rachel Helling (Vocals on "Where No One's Ever Seen")
Influences
a few music wise: Owen, American Football, Idaho, Sun Kil Moon, Rivulets, Quiet Bears, Nick Drake, Songs:Ohia, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Arco, Hayden, Wheat, Ida, David Bazan and Pedro The Lion, Ryan Adams (heartbreaker), The Microphones and Mount Eerie, the Notwist, Buck 65, Red House Painters...
Anselm Kiefer, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Eva Hesse, Brice Marden, Jasper Johns, Andy Goldsworthy, Cy Twombly, Ursula Von Rydingsvard, Derek Taylor, sunflowers, stars, coffee, Maker's Mark, Bass beer, seasons and landscapes...
everything is an experience, both good or bad, and i try to document some of mine through my music.
Sounds Like
layered guitar parts, over soft lyrics, with the occasional drum and eggshaker.
Our first release by A.P. Swearengin is a meditation on home. It is not a structure, a building filled with things that come to be of little worth compared to the memory. The memory is irrevocable. It is constant. This is a strange thing to say. We speak so much of age pulling away our memories, slowly and concertedly, but With/Without has the feeling of something lost, returning thickly as a drunken tongue. A voice or a sound - they are telling you, again and again, things you had forgotten. They are photographs left to age and dust or old joys lost to maturity. The music surges vibrantly with home and safety in such a melancholy way as to make it seem so distant, a thing past whatever now exists. What is left looks so small in comparison to the surrounding dark. But it’s there, and despite years of neglect, the memories Swearengin reminds us of remain a beacon.
Her Story of the Winter
"what a beautiful group of recordings.
i've never been there, but it feels like kansas in the winter. driving used cars across farmland. discovering one's self in travel and reflection. being disconnected/alienated from home, but also being in love with it. feels like a postcard." -James Musselman (Longsleeves)
nice! austin... i have been in kansas waiting for graduation. i'll come visit when it's not snowing, k? haa i don't get on myspace anymore... LOVE YOUU.
thank you a lot for inviting me to your friends..! i stumbled across your beautiful songs a couple of days ago when i found the review of your latest work on common folk meadow. i really enjoy your music, i fall for those slow e-guitar melodies!
The birds are all done. I like the negative space that's there so I'm leaving it. Wish me luck, I have a ton more stuff to get done before next week. I want to get a phat scholarship so I can go to school for free.
Keep me posted on any upcoming shows. I'm booking for October right now and it'd be a pleasure to share the stage with you. My next show is at the Loft (above Barfly) in downtown Minneapolis, September 24th. After that, the sky is the limit.
