“Earnest, Intimate, & Resigned”: The Clearwater Swimmers Find Catharsis & Connection on Their Achingly Raw Debut

A tender tempest, The Clearwater Swimmers’ self-titled debut album aches inside and out as the alternative band search for, and ultimately find meaning in life’s little moments through a vulnerable, visceral, and unflinchingly raw canvas.

Stream: “Firewood” – The Clearwater Swimmers

“She asked the valley, ‘what’s a life, without trying, without shame?’ And somewhere somehow in the night, it answered, ‘pain.’

Vulnerable, visceral, and unapologetically raw, The Clearwater Swimmers’ debut album aches inside and out.

Unfiltered, unflinching, and uncompromisingly alternative, it’s a rugged record that wears its heart on its sleeve, dwelling in life’s dark depths and processing intense emotions and experiences in real time. All those otherwise fleeting moments that sit with us, years later; all the words that get stuck in our throats, left unexpressed and unsaid; all those things we’re still working through come to the fore on a collection of songs that is at once charming and churning, soothing and searing – and forever seductive. A tender tempest, The Clearwater Swimmers hurts so good as the band search for, and find meaning in life’s little moments of love, connection, and understanding.

Did you feel it break, or fall before
The cold comes and burns
all your firewood?
And something’s happening

And I’ll go running
Down the mountain
And I’ll go sheltering
And I’ll tell you when

I feel better then
And you’ll feel nothing when
Darkness hides all your feelings
When nothing more is leaving

We’ll hear you praying
We’ll hear you singing
And we try listening
and harmonizing

– “Firewood,” The Clearwater Swimmers

Released October 4th, 2024 via New Martian Records, The Clearwater Swimmers is a bold, beautiful, and breathtaking introduction to a brand new band – one born out of intimate reflections and reckonings, big smiles and long cries. Maine-born, New York City-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Sumner Bright (who has also released solo music under the moniker ‘twitches’) shines alongside friends and bandmates Sander Casale (guitar), Timothy Graff (drums & percussion), and Connor Kennedy (bass and vocals), who joined Bright initially to help bring “a collection of field notes exploring gratitude, and how to shape it into a salve, armor, and engine” to life. What began as a studio project (with members scattered across the Northeast) has since become a tight-knit band effort through and through, and that collective identity radiates throughout The Clearwater Swimmers’ ten soul-stirring, emotionally charged songs.

“Writing this record felt like a reunion in a lot of ways, but also a fresh start sonically,” drummer Timothy Graff tells Atwood Magazine. “It was really cool seeing the fruits of my bandmates’ growth in the way we played together. It called for more restraint, care, and thoughtful writing then anything I’d done before.”

“Tim said it best,” frontperson Sumner Bright beams. “I think the truest ‘story’ of this record is that it is a first step into something new, while also being a conglomerate of everything each of us already had. I think doing this record challenged us in a lot of unique ways and let us explore some new themes. To me, the most important factor of the record was coming together to make it.”

“The only real vision I had going into this record was wanting to create the bones of a group that can stay alive and well for a long time,” Bright adds. “Playing music is hard, playing music with other people is really hard, too. I just wanted us to feel good about it, and hoped that we’d come out of the studio with something we felt proud to call uniquely ours. Thankfully, the recording process stayed really true to that vision. It was a really affirming process to me, and kind of solidified in my mind a lot of faith I need to keep the ball rolling.”

Graff candidly describes The Clearwater Swimmers as earnest, intimate, and resigned.

“I think this album has a lot of moments that briefly give nods to directions we could possibly go in in future songs and recordings,” Bright muses. “We’re all four people with similar but occasionally different music tastes, and although I’ve been the primary songwriter thus far I’m interested in seeing what we can do in a more collaborative process. I also think there are some fun moments on this record which were really important for me to include – we do love to have our fun.”

Self-titling their debut was ultimately an easy and obvious choice. “It was important to me that we introduce ourselves properly and showcase the scope of our vision all under our own name,” Bright says. “I thought to name the album something more rooted in a narrative, but that felt wrong when it came down to it.”

Highlights abound on the journey from the heavy hitting opener “Valley” to the lilting, aptly titled acoustic finale “Radiant.” Within those bookends are moments full of achingly raw rock fervor; of gentle folk warmth; of dreamy DIY charm; of earnest passion and haunting pain. Songs like “Firewood,” “Heaven’s a Bar,” “Let Us Be Strangers,” “Proud,” and “Man of God” resonate thanks to their brilliant blend of emotional and musical intensity, but for this writer, it’s “Weathervane” that stands out as a true testament to who The Clearwater Swimmers are, and what they’re capable of: Melting light and darkness into a fever dream that sways the body and stirs the soul, leaving a sting that last long after the music’s over.

“[That is] the ‘I’m just having a bad day’ of the record,” Bright says of “Weathervane.” “It takes a pendulum swing back to the earlier songs in the album, like we often do on any given day when we just get stuck on certain images, or sensory memories.”

I hear the rain
Falling down off your weathervane
I sit and smile as I watch it
fall, and fall, and fall, and fall

I hear the wind
Spinning ‘round your weathervane
I swear I hear it
Squeak out the syllables of your name

So I thank the sun
For giving me the gift of some
Company and time,
And joy and love
And pain, and pain, and pain

I still hear the rain
Falling down on your windowpane

– “Weathervane,” The Clearwater Swimmers

Bright and co. have plenty of their own favorite songs, but their collective highlight will forever be the actual recording process. “Bradford Krieger at Big Nice Studio had a significant role in shepherding the record into its final form,” Timothy Graff explains. “He encouraged us when we felt iffy about a song or section and let us know when something wasn’t working. He also wasn’t hesitant to jump in and lend his musicianship to a track when he felt inspired to do so which in turn inspired us to share ideas and try things we might not have.”

While on the topic of memorable moments, Bright does share three of their favorite lyrics:

“She held my hand & kissed it too, and said all we do is try” – “Valley”

“Nothing more is leaving” – “Firewood”

“I feel the heat move from recollection to sowing, shapeless but thrumming. plucked from the past, I scatter like glass” – “Radiant”

Dreamy and dynamic, dramatic, and all-consuming, The Clearwater Swimmers is the cathartic exhale 2024 didn’t know it needed.

Within the gut-wrenching confessions, the sonic grit and fervor are comforting kernels of truth; of connection; of community and unabridged humanity.

“I hope people can take away whatever they need to from the album; there’s no telling how someone might connect to a tune,” Timothy Graff concludes. “I think the songs lend themselves to a long hard think on a car ride. As for me, I think its taught me to slow down, be patient, both in life and music.”

Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside The Clearwater Swimmers’ The Clearwater Swimmers with Atwood Magazine as the band take us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of their self-titled debut album!

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:: stream/purchase The Clearwater Swimmers here ::

:: connect with The Clearwater Swimmers here ::

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Stream: ‘The Clearwater Swimmers’ – The Clearwater Swimmers

:: Inside The Clearwater Swimmers ::

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Valley

This song is the first that was written with the understanding that a new project was taking shape, which then became the swimmers. “valley” is a scattered story about desire taking place across two planes – and how the two different realities can have windows to one another, via ourselves.

River

“River” is a musing on time, how it passes, and what it takes along the way. It was inspired by feeling myself being pulled in no discernible direction, and knowing that everything else was being pulled, too – searching for whatever chooses to float next to it.

Let Us Be Strangers

This is an exploration of acceptance, within the context of the record. The wind provides a level of inevitability that the narrator wishes themselves into, acknowledging that wherever it chooses to go is beyond control, and they can view that as a gift, or cause for hope.

Proud

When we are at our worst, it can be easy to slip into a rhythm of self-depreciating, and point towards inconsequential and incomplete causes – It’s easy to kick yourself, and it can be easier being bruised than healed. “Proud” is about naming the bad logic that keeps you in that place of hurting.

Man of God

I just love hanging out with my friends. I cherish a lot of those memories – “Man of God” is an attempt at visiting one.

Firewood

“Firewood” was inspired by the summer of ’23 in New York when wildfire engulfed the whole city for a week or so. It felt very apocalyptic, which is something that frequently terrifies me, and the only way I could quell that fear was by entertaining a sliver of faith in something after all this shit.

Heaven’s a Bar

I am working on understanding why I am often my best self in new situations, and my worst self when I stand still for too long. “Heaven’s a Bar” is a hazy, rosy, retelling of those specific kinds of feelings, in hopes that I could understand them better – which didn’t quite work.

Weathervane

“Weathervane” is the “I’m just having a bad day” of the record. It takes a pendulum swing back to the earlier songs in the album, like we often do on any given day when we just get stuck on certain images, or sensory memories.

Kites

This is a song that had no plan of being on the record, it is kind of an outlier that way, but I still find that it fits. It is a direct ode to a late mentor in my life – learned by the band and thrown to the album in a remarkable shoehorn moment.

Radiant

“Radiant” is visiting the very beginning of this whole thing, just quickly before the record ends. All of these songs were initially just demos on my portastudio – of them all, this one, and how it directly names the process of shaping gratitude, needed to be at the end of the chapter.

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:: stream/purchase The Clearwater Swimmers here ::

:: connect with The Clearwater Swimmers here ::

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 © Preston Ossman
art © Zoe Fox

The Clearwater Swimmers

an album by The Clearwater Swimmers