First Impressions: Swimming by Sam Moss

At first listen, Swimming almost seems like somnolence set to song due to Sam Moss’s acoustic guitar and hushed vocals, with the string of one-word titles somehow adding to the sentiment. But a first listen is a cursory listen and the music proves to be anything but subdued the second time through. Ocean currents seem like benign manifestations of the wind-driven waves that lap and splash to shore, after all, but they’re actually the result of a delicate dance—wind-powered, yes, but density, salinity and the tides play important roles, too. To borrow a line from Neil Young, there’s more to the picture than meets the eye.

There’s a myth that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans don’t mix, though in fact they do—as the turbulent waters around Cape Horn prove. Surface-level currents and deeper flows mingle and butt proverbial heads, fomenting allusions, analogies, metaphors and more. “I heard hope in the chillest land/Sung its tune with crumbs in hand/I felt the birds give meaning to/An otherwise broken day,” Moss sings in “Feathers,” a poetic treatise inspired by Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers,” before delving into the abyss: “Every darkness has a different look/Through the window of your gospel.”

The past few nights, I’ve slipped on headphones and listened to the calm give way to a storm—most notably on “Eyes,” an ominous track that falls late in the song cycle. An electric guitar wells large as if a wave that will never break, all while Moss delivers knowing lyrics about the charlatans who walk among us, be they preachers, politicians or pop singers: “Some people got the voice/That makes nothing else matter/Might as well be a pair of lungs and a pair of lips/Singing about nothing in particular.” Moss reminds me of Hayley Reardon, another poet in singer-songwriter guise. They spur us to listen, to ponder the weight of their words.

This may sound unrelated, and perhaps it is, but Diane and I frequent several grocery stores—one because it’s convenient, another due to points that shave a few cents from a gallon of gas, and others because they stock things the others don’t. Yesterday, driving to one some 20 minutes away, I was struck by “Dance,” which captures the swirls and twirls, yins and yangs, of dancing to remember and dancing to forget, of giving over one’s self to a song’s melodies and rhythms when alone and/or with a partner or animal pal. Music accents the good times. It also alleviates the suffering of souls: “With the apocalypse on/Just the warm up/not the big one/When I am sinking down/I will be searching for a song.”

Subtleties shade Swimming from start to finish, with its hues imbued with both light and darkness. Sometimes, especially for dancing around a room, a simple pop tune will do. But when one wants to realign the mind with the soul, there are few better albums to play. The music laps, splashes and, yes, occasionally crashes to shore, while Moss’s lyrics bear poetic truths in the accompanying breeze. It’s life’s voluble utterance set to song.