Our Song of the Day comes from Swimming Bell, the solo project of Brooklyn-based folk singer Katie Schottland. For Brinsley features on her new album, Wild Sight which is out on April 5th. Like her earlier critically-acclaimed EP The Golden Heart, this album was also produced by Oli Deakin (Lowpines) and was recorded in various locations in the UK and finished in New York. The album hails a slight sonic shift from her earlier work, using a more expansive sound to project emotion and intimacy which works so well on this new single that shimmers with delicate clarity. It’s really quite sublime.
The song was inspired by and borrows its chorus from ‘Don’t Lose Your Grip on Love’ by 1970s English pub rock band Brinsley Schwarz. The band took their name from their guitarist to whom this song is also dedicated. It featured on their 1972 album ‘Nervous on the Road’.
Schottland began to write songs after she broke her foot in the fall of 2015, learning some basic chords by teaching herself to play Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon”. Having had no musical training she approached writing melodies and progressions by ear, and soon had some ideas sketched out for her first songs. Always moved by layered vocal harmonies, she began to imagine the multiple vocal layers that would form much of her debut EP The Golden Heart, which she recorded with Oli Deakin in London in 2017.
Following its release, she began touring extensively, and developed different ways of realizing the soundscapes and textures of the record as a solo live show, using just her voice, guitar and some pedals.
Taking inspiration from these new sounds and from life on the road, she began writing the songs that would form Wild Sight in summer 2017. Traveling to the UK, recording began in early 2018 and continued through the spring as the songs and recordings developed together. Wild Sight is out April 5th on Adventure Club Records.