From the first moments of Mute Swan’s Skin Slip LP, I feel like I’m being slowly consumed by a pillow filled with plushy rocks. The track “Hypnosis Tapes” has that irresistible shoegaze vibe left by bands like Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, and, more recently, Nothing. And Mute Swan could have made a whole album like this, and I would have been fine with it, but the Tucson, AZ band shifts into a more brooding, yet dreamy post-punk backdrop on “Like a Chump” or “Shadow Of.” There’s also a dancey synthgaze track in “Cocteau Swan” featuring another Tucson, AZ band, Citrus Clouds. It kind of comes out of nowhere, but it’s become one of my go-tos on Skin Slip.
That cornucopia wall of sound energy is holding the foundation of Skin Slip together, a form of malignant glue that beautifully paves the way for some truly depressing lyrics. All the vocals sound like they were recorded at a whisper, during a game of telephone, but layered in succession. As with most shoegaze, Skin Slip is all about the build-up to a cathartic release that leaves you craving for more.
I learned that right after this album was tracked, Mute Swan had to deal with a tragedy—the death of one of their guitarists, Thom Sloane, whose passing sent a sombre ripple through the Tucson, AZ music scene. So in a lot of ways, Skin Slip is a eulogy for Sloane, whose tones and riffs are integral to the elastic nature of Mute Swan’s sound. This makes a song like “Phantasms of the Living” hit even harder, as we hear the ghost of Sloan absolutely ripping on the guitar. Death aside, this is a fantastic shoegaze meets dream punk album.
