Happy Release Day to Swansea Sound – Live at the Rum Puncheon Is Out

The perks of running your own site, and your own label, is you can write about what you want and celebrate when you want. So, here we are at ATH, home of ATH Records, celebrating a release we’re super happy to be part of, Swansea Sound and their debut LP, Live at the Rum Puncheon. In case you needed a reminder, you’ve got some heavy-hitters in this band from acts such as Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Pooh Sticks and more. And what better way to celebrate than by letting you stream the whole thing in its fresh entirety below. It’s best listened to at high volumes with open hearts. Grab a tape HERE, or check out the band’s BANDCAMP as there are several other great folks like HHBTM handling various media.

Swansea Sound Share Rock n’ Roll Void Video

We recently announced that our label arm, ATH Records, would be stepping outside of Austin this year; we were stoked to announce we’d be working with Swansea Sound, featuring members of Heavenly, Pooh Sticks, Catenary Wires, etc. Well, now we have another fresh video from the band’s forthcoming Live at the Rum Puncheon. It’s the opening track on their LP, with Hue starring in the front of this tune, in both song and video. It’s good to see that Amelia’s catching up on her reading, particularly as there’s a great Felt/the Servants/Talulah Gosh flier right behind her for a show I wish I could have attended. Speaking of shows, if you’re in the UK, the band have a handful of shows to celebrate the release of the album. There’s tons of folks involved here (Skep Wax, etc), but if you’re in the US, you can grab a tape HERE or an LP HERE.

Swansea Sound Announce Live at the Rum Puncheon

Surprise! We’re working with Swansea Sound! The band, made up of members of Pooh Sticks and Heavenly (as well as Catenary Wires and Talulah Gosh) will be releasing Live at the Rum Puncheon on November 19th; it’s a join affair with various media available; we’ll be handling the cassette version here in the States on ATH Records. While a few of the tracks have been tossed out as early singles, not to mention the incredible E-Bay auction, everyone involved felt it only worked to announce the album with a brand new track for you all to enjoy! Plus, if you head to the band’s site, you can hear the song in Cymraeg. We’ll keep you up to date with things, but we wanted to celebrate and with you all and tell you how stoked we are to be part of this. Keep up to date with various ways to grab the album by checking in on the group HERE.

Meet Swansea Sound

Swansea Sound might never have happened if it weren’t for lockdown. It is our new band with Huw from the Pooh Sticks. Amelia used to sing with them, and they were one of Robs favourite bands. We had a feeling that Huw, like us, would be sitting around at home wondering what to do with himself. So we sent him some songs that we felt might suit his voice and suddenly we had a new band on our hands.

Huw recorded the vocals into a phone in a cupboard in his house in Wales, we did the guitars here, and Ian Button (of the Catenary Wires) developed an amazing way of playing drums using his fingers on his laptop at his home. It felt like pure indie we recorded it all ourselves, we didn’t use proper studios, we didn’t need anyone’s money and it was fun. Huws mate Ant runs a cassette label (Lavender Sweep, in Swansea) and agreed to put out the first single. It sold out in a few hours. It got on the radio. It was real! It felt like we were re-connecting with the spirit of punk and proper indie music: DIY and anti-corporate. We made a video too, using Robs phone as a camera and Amelia’s laptop for editing.

Swansea Sound Share Debut Single

A few weeks ago when I got to chat with European Sun, Rob informed me that he and Amelia were working on a new project with Hue from Pooh Sticks named Swansea Sound. Well, they’ve unleashed their first 2 track single into the world, and I wanted to make sure that these two tunes were on your listening rotation before this week gets carried away. Despite the trio’s penchant for melody, there’s a slightly heavier feel to Swansea Sound; the riffs have less jangle and a harder edge, giving a little bit of attitude to these tunes. “Corporate Indie Band” has this big pop rock feel to it, while the trio seem to mock the formulaic style of modern rock n’ roll. With “Angry Girl,” you almost get a punchier Britpop feel, though I was particularly infatuated with the little shift around the 1:23 mark. If you dig it, there’s a limited edition cassette courtesy of Lavender Sweep!