‘A Nice Full Circle Experience’: SWIM’s ‘Dear Friend’ Captures An Artist Not Content With Slowing Down

SWIM isn’t a new name in the electronic music scene, but in the last 18 months Hamish Lefevre, the man behind the project has been making a fast ascendency, selling out Australian shows and featuring on European festival lineups. 

Through the archetype of the quiet achiever, it’s really Lefevre’s sonic layering and journeying sound that speaks for the resonance apparent in the project. 

Having released his debut album In Circles only last year to global interest, Lefevre has slowly but assuredly been on the rise, carving out a reputation with euphoric and emotive narratorial threads. 

Sonically, Lefevre has moulded this through the way he weaves his albums from start to finish, as well as the adventure that is offered through his live performances. 

The year so far has seen Lefevre sell out two shows at the Forum in Naarm/Melbourne, a Roundhouse show in Warrane/Sydney and at the famed Koko in London. This is off the back of performances at Loveland Festival and Pukkelpop in the Netherlands. 

With the release of his second album, Dear Friend, taking place last Friday, performances at Beyond The Valley and Lost Paradise in Australia scheduled over New Years, and a run of shows in Europe commencing February, it doesn’t look to be slowing for Lefevre anytime soon. 

It’s safe to say that Lefevre is on the rise to become a familiar name in electronic music globally, an impressive feat for an artist who has remained independent from the outset.

I spoke with Lefevre, who zoomed in from his new home in London. He moved there 18 months ago to mould a life supportive of his musical artistry. It’s been a move that has directly challenged and inspired his musicianship.

“When I think of the new record,” says Lefevre. “I think of January at the start of this year, that's when I did a lot of the writing for the record. I'd been back in Australia for a little bit and then I'd just come back over here and it was my first proper winter over here.

“It was getting dark every day at 4:30pm and it was bitterly cold outside. I felt pretty removed from all my friends and family back home and in some ways, it was isolating and lonely, but it also gave me a lot of time and headspace to focus and lock in and write this record.”

It was the process of enduring the yearning to be with loved ones and the struggle of a UK winter that resulted in Lefevre re-writing most of the upcoming record.

“I'd been playing shows in Australia and I had come back over and had a bunch of ideas,” he states. “I thought that I had an album that was finished and it just needed a bit of touching up. As I tried to finish these songs and tried to push them further, I just realised that they weren't really done and I wasn't getting anywhere. So that was when I started writing again.

“In that January, I wrote maybe like seven or eight of the songs that ended up being on the record. They were all written pretty sporadically during that time. There was something about the loneliness and isolation of being in a new city and not being around that many other people that informed the way that the music was made.”

The result, Dear Friend, is a 12-track journey through the full spectrum of emotion any particular human is capable of. This expression, that is the allowance of subjective connection to sonically expressed themes, is one that Lefevre has intentionally crafted.  

“The album isn’t necessarily about missing a particular person,” explains Lefevre. “It was written about missing many things, like missing family and friends, a place, missing your home. And that's why the title is Dear Friend. What I like about it is it can be this broad thing that means different things in different circumstances and to different people.

“With my first record and also Dear Friend, there was so much emphasis that I put on the transitions between each track. If you listen to them in order, they'll all flow through perfectly and merge into one another, like you're listening to a DJ mix.”

However, woven into the experiences that shaped the songs and the album as a whole resides the opportunity for interpretation by audiences. Lefevre outlines that this complexity is harboured in the experience of listening. 

“When you talk about the track titles and I talk about these themes, it sounds somewhat sombre,” he suggests. “But I think that the record in itself is actually really hopeful, uplifting and euphoric. 

“I’ve taken these themes that are quite deep and emotional and then through the presentation to an audience I am allowing for them to be flipped around and related to in a positive and beautiful form.”

And this is true, there is never a specific way to relate to any form of art, nor is there a binary of emotional perception in relation to it. For Lefevre the opportunity to have spent time missing loved ones to only be returning to Australia this summer allows for the fullness of being. 

“I’m open to anyone having their own interpretation or experience of the songs,” he says. “Just because they mean one thing to me doesn't mean that is how they need to be perceived by listeners. Once the music is released though they stop becoming mine and start belonging to the fans and to the people. 

“And so, it's going to be a nice full circle experience for this record to come out at the end of November and then be able to go back home and play these festivals over the summer. It’s going to be expansive to be able to give this music a new context and be able to play it live in front of people in the joy of summer.”

The same can be said of Lefevre’s experience of playing festivals in Europe in the summer.

“Summer always feels like the best time to play,” he proclaims. “Summer time anywhere, Europe or Australia – particularly in the festival scene – is the most uplifting atmosphere.”

And despite all he has achieved, so much lies ahead for Lefevre. Having fulfilled a lifelong dream of collaborating with an orchestra based out of Budapest and with more shows on the horizon, anything is possible for this dedicated and authentic artist. 

SWIM’s Dear Friend is out now.