The Swirlies

Swirlies
Swirlies in their practice space, 1992
Background information
Origin	Boston, Massachusetts
Genres	Indie rock,lo-fi, chimp rock,shoegaze, noise pop
Years active	1990–present
Labels	Taang!, Bubblecore, Slumberland, Sneaky Flute Empire

Swirlies is an indie rock band formed in Boston in 1990.

Guitarists Seana Carmody and Damon Tutunjian met each other in Spring 1990 when they joined a Go-Go's cover band formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tutunjian, Carmody, and drummer Jason Fitzpatrick learned two songs before abandoning their original objective in favor of writing originals. Under the name Raspberry Bang, the group released one song on a 7-inch record compilation to benefit animal rights.

In November 1990, Tutunjian's high school friend Andy Bernick was enlisted to play bass and MIT student Ben Drucker was recruited on drums. The band began writing and recording songs characterized by shifting tempos, loud vibrato guitars played through numerous effects pedals, Tutunjian and Carmody's melodic vocal interplay, and occasional bursts of screaming and other noise. They completed their first 4-track demo in December 1990, and played their first show on January 25, 1991. Because of the band's practice of alternate guitar tunings, Bernick took to playing tapes or static from an old AM radio to fill time while Carmody and Tutunjian adjusted their guitars. This lo-fi sound would later spill over between songs on the band's recorded work.

In 1991 Swirlies made some 8-track home recordings, which saw issue as the band's first single "Didn't Understand," first self-released as a cassette and then as a 7-inch record by Slumberland Records. A split double-single with Boston noise rock band Kudgel followed, and the group entered the studio for a single and compilation tracks for Boston's Pop Narcotic label.

In 1992 the band signed to Taang! Records and released the eight-song mini-album What To Do About Them culled from a mix of previously available and unreleased home and studio recordings. Musician/cartoonist Ron Regé, Jr. contributed artwork to the album's cover as well as lo-fi recordings that were woven into the record's sequence. The band also set to work recording their first LP, around which time shifts in Swirlies' personnel began to occur. Ben Drucker only drummed on a third of the new album's studio tracks, and for the remaining songs his parts were handed over to a pair of session drummers. Andy Bernick departed to pursue ornithology for the academic year and Damon's former roommate Morgan Andrews filled in on bass guitar and other noises. It was this line-up that toured to support the new album, Blonder Tongue Audio Baton, and appeared in the video for its lead track, "Bell". Named for an obscure piece of vintage musical equipment, Blonder Tongue Audio Baton made use of Mellotron, Moog, and other analogue artifacts that the group had unearthed in the studio. During sequencing the band threw in numerous lo-fi compositions, soundbites, and rants, and collaged together an album jacket from arrays of found images and objects that matched the album's eclectic aesthetics. Hailed for melding "the high waters of shoegaze creativity and the mounting currents of indie rock", Blonder Tongue Audio Baton quickly rose to prominence in the American noise pop canon.