SWIMMING LESSONS

At school I hated swimming lessons.

I hated being forced to line up on the school’s rickety old coach, then trudging across a cold damp car park before being marched into the soulless, heartless, and usually empty, Hebburn swimming baths – all so I could have the pleasure of being screamed at by Miss Trunchbull, simply for not being very good at it anyway. Yes, I hated swimming lessons.

Thankfully the latest track from Leeds based artist Ben Lewis features everything the lesson his moniker shares its name with never had.

The drums, like me whenever I remembered it was a swimming lesson day, shudder along – as Ben’s rich, dreamy vocals pack the track full of personality. All the while whirring, toy like delicate synths flitter about in the background. As the track builds, it begins to feel like it’s floating, like some sort of beautiful buoy on an ever increasing tidal wave of gorgeous chillwave atmospherics and yearning vocals.

There’s no thrashing around like a lunatic here.

Words by George Shaw

Tipped by Hector Barley  from The 405 & Whiskas