Blue Swan is James Giles’ second album. Weaving its way through rock, indie, alternative-folk, and ambient music, it carries the listener into a whirlwind of musical expressions. From the pulsating rhythm of the title track, Blue Swan, and the melodic but eerie strains of Shallow Graves, to the hypnotizing cycles of The Western Sky, a path is traced that has no evident boundaries. Each song, however, shares something with the others. This is betrayed by how the compositions seep into the listener to play with diverse emotions, with the lyrics providing the core around which the music forms. In Star Rise Eyes, the gaze entering the night is ‘drifting ever to the place where dreams begin’, while the music paints the poetry with dream-like refrains that coax the listener into the coming darkness. Even with the instrumental The Walking Song, the title is enough to provide a basis for the musical journey that is to come.

Never still, the album Blue Swan is forever changing directions. Just when one feels the classical legatos of I Can’t Stay have brought things to a close, the driving blues-rock of When Mama Got out of Prison reassures us that, although we may not know where we’re going, we’ll go there anyway.

Availabe on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and other digital platforms. See:https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/jamesgiles/blue-swan-2

Record label: 1910786 Records DK