From Cradle To Rave

Pete Swanson's voice seems perpetually coloured by surprise. Particularly when discussing his work as a musician. He seems surprised that anyone still cares about his old band Yellow Swans (“Probably has something to do with the fact that we didn't release our last album – 2010's Going Places – until two years after we broke up,” he laughs), surprised at the music he's currently making; in fact, surprised to be making music at all.

“Well, I don't really have a lot of time for it. I don't really have time to tour,” he laughs. “I'm in grad school full-time and I'm trying to focus on this other career path. When I was in Yellow Swans, I used to go on tour and come back and do social work, working with mentally ill people. Most recently, I was working with drug addicts with mental illness. So, I decided to study and become a nurse-practitioner.”

Ironically, such pursuits have coincided with what has arguably been Swanson's most celebrated period. Long respected as a member of the noise underground through his work with Yellow Swans, Swanson's solo output has seen him embraced by entire new audiences. Specifically, his 2011 debut solo album Man With Potential and same year follow-up I Don't Rock At All saw him introduced to techno and ambient crowds.

“Well, my friends were interested in what I was doing,” he explains of the emergence of his solo career. “I remained pretty active after Yellow Swans. Every six months or so, I'd just pull the best stuff from my basement and release it on cassette. When I was recording Man With Potential and I Don't Rock At All, I had some offers for releases – so I just went up to a friend's place in Oregon, set up a studio and recorded them in two weeks.

“It's been very interesting. There's been a lot of interest from the techno world – and I never expected that,” he laughs. “Apparently there's been a lot of noise artists moving into techno lately. It's kind of hilarious. All these different artists from different parts of the country, who were on all these different trips, somehow all ended up in kind of the same place at the same time – but I didn't know that when I was making the record.”

Swanson, though, maintains that his output isn't quite as surprising as some would suggest. Much has been made in various reviews of his transition into techno on Man With Potential but Swanson sees both of his solo albums as an evolution of his work within Yellow Swans – and really sees techno as simply a phase his work as a musician is going through at the moment.

“I can see where people are coming from when they talk about my music and techno – but, really, most of the Yellow Swans stuff... Even on Going Places, you could hear a kind of pulse within the music,” he muses. “Man With Potential was this really jagged, harsh album. I Don't Rock At All was this pastoral, ambient guitar album. I really think that's just the two halves of Yellow Swans explored separately.

“I actually got a call recently asking if I wanted to be a part of a compilation of noise artists making techno. I kind of said, 'Well, yeah, okay – but this will probably be the last time I really do anything with this sound'. I have no idea what my next record will sound like at this point,” he says with a laugh. “I do want to make another one but I probably won't have time to release it until, like, 2013.”