Bleep

Named after their dream destination if the album made it big, Swayzak’s debut Snowboarding in Argentina is finally reissued and remastered via Lapsus Records. Its tracks were scattered across varying tracklists on vinyl and CD releases in 1998, all swaddled in an inviting, shiny gauze. Now, this definitive 25th anniversary edition collects them all, and then some, decked in Perennial beige for Lapsus’s Perennial Series of reissues.

The explorations of hardware jams that David Nicholas Brown and James S. Taylor dabbled in throughout the years evolved into an album full of hope and variety, seeing them gig across the globe. Like the zigzagging motions of snowboarders and skiers, the duo slide down a mountain of electronic dance styles, from twitchy, azure deep house that recognises its Detroit influences, to dubby crushes of longform beat explorations, and all the breakbeat eruptions that happen in between.

Swayzak revel in the lush and laidback: ‘Cone’ is more rainforest than it is jungle, with a moody bassline and skittering beats drenched in warm, cloudy atmospherics, while slight distortion gives the jittery percussive loops their colour. ‘Speedboat’ cruises along with dolphin whistles and the blue mist of sea spray, and ‘Blocks’ is crystal clear with air pushing, swishing breakbeats, influenced by hip hop rhythms and indebted to bliss. ‘Skin Diving’ is one of the more dynamic cuts, where foaming drums crash in a sudden avalanche, amidst springy synths and licks of guitar slaps.

A quarter of a century later, Swayzak’s debut album Snowboarding in Argentina remains timeless.