Patrick Fitzgerald, Laurie Anderson, Momus, Steve Reich/Michael Nyman/similar, Jane Siberry, Kate Bush, Joanna Newsom, Richard Hawley, Emma Townshend, Mark Eitzel, Pulp, David Sylvian, Thom Yorke, Red House Painters, the sea, the hills, train engines, traffic hum, machine hiss, the rustle of trees, everything else that sounds like music but technically isn't yet
First Minister is a solo project by Andrew Eaton from Swimmer One. An album will be released in 2009 on Biphonic Records.
Some things people have said about Swimmer One...
'They give intelligence a good name and are more windswept than worthy. Their music has the quirky intricacy of Belle & Sebastian and the soaring atmosphere of Blue Nile, and it is very, very good.' The Guardian
'Andrew Eaton and Hamish Brown make their angsty but uplifting electronic pop in a small attic by the sea just north of the Scottish capital, and their songs often evoke the wind-blown expanses of the Scottish countryside and coastline. But there's little narrow-minded or hidebound about their exhilarating debut, The Regional Variations, one of the finest of this year's freshman efforts.' The Independent
'Swimmer One's debut is a promiscuous synth pop marvel, littered with doomsayers, fakesters, drowning men, black sheep, theatre freaks and TV clowns in fuck-me heels... A bookish, codpiece-disco treat.' Plan B
'Might just be the find of the year... Like a stripped-down Scottish Pet Shop Boys or a more melancholy synth-based Pulp, Swimmer One's brilliance should be shouted from the rooftops.' The List
'If David Bowie ever got stuck in a lift shaft with Jarvis Cocker and
Bill Drummond, they might eventually come up with something as enticing
as The Regional Variations.' Metro
'A melodic and oblique approach, and a lyric sheet which reads every bit as well as it sounds, set them apart. Andrew Eaton's flexible voice sometimes has the timbre of a David Sylvian or a Bryan Ferry, but The Regional Variations is about as original as it is going to get in pop land.' Scotland on Sunday
'Quietly brilliant... 'Pop' doesn't begin to do justice to the depth and the complexity of the music, which calls to mind an earthier, more mischievous Blue Nile.' The Herald
