This year, Swim Into The Sound will turn 10 years old, and that’s almost inconceivable to me. This blog has changed a lot since I was a college kid throwing Google Docs ramblings up on a Tumblr page, and I’m immensely proud of everything this site has grown into. I’m constantly thankful, appreciative, and awed by the people this site brought into my life and the music I’ve been lucky enough to share this past decade.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Swim Into The Sound’s role, not just as a website but as an outlet within my life. For the past few years, an increasing trend has been that I’ve been writing less and editing more. Some of that is bandwidth, but the bigger something is, the more pressure I tend to put on it. Put another way, there are tons of albums/bands/songs I love that I have no desire to review, and it’s weird that a “review” is so often the currency of this industry.

I love the Swim Team and how many albums we’ve been able to review throughout 2024 because there are that many of us. That said, I have long been considering the effectiveness of “album reviews” as a format, at least on this publication. It’s not just that people have a narrow definition of what an album review is or could be, it’s that it centers all the attention around a specific window right when a record is dropping. Don’t get me wrong, I still love a good review, but I’ve found that centering my own music writing around a thousand-word piece designed to be deployed the week an album drops feels like it underserves both parties.

To that end, I want to do more short-form writing about music I’ve been loving. That brings us to Swim Selects, a weekly series where I can write about whatever I'm obsessed with at that moment. It could be from this week or last year, but no matter the case, I want it to come from a genuine place. This is my latest obsession put to paper and sent off as a message in a bottle. I’m going to keep it short and pointed: a singular recommendation for you to check out if you are in the mood to explore.