2023: 'Were You Even There'

Cold Water Swimmers have penned and performed a song that is, without question, a beautiful statement to lay the foundations for a year of inspirations.

Were You Even There (Digital Download/Stream)

Hear Here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/coldwaterswimmers/were-you-even-there

Live on stage, 26th January, Gullivers NQ, Manchester

Cold Water Swimmers - Chris Bridgett (vocals and guitars), Carrie Lawson (bass), Selina Woolnough (drums) - are a mainstream worthy band under the radar yet sonically over the moon aglow.

The first new release in eighteen months - literally half of the pandemica White-Mirror madness era - ‘Were You Even There’ is a grand melody with 90s confidence, forward facing the near future with a sing-along lyrical charm to feel more human. We need such stay-strong tunes in our lives.

Recorded at 6DB in August 2022, self produced with Simon Ding Archer, the single is released on their own DIY or DIE label.

It’s a taste of a second album due later this year. Their chronologically created debut, ‘Holiday At The Secret Lake’, was widely praised and a Louder Than War album of 2021. Not surprising really, Cold Water Swimmers have a way with a musical hook. It’s how they originally wove into #TheZineUK doc tapestry. of newer wave sounds; “Being superb” live on stage at Manchester’s #YANAfest, March 2019 (Spring Part 1 https://issuu.com/thezineuk/docs/019spring1 flicky piccy clicky)

Time travel a few years from that inaugural, You Are Not Alone Festival (sold out multi venue all dayer for Mental Health) to the NOW and NEXT life sentence: a self-devastated nation misgoverned by bigoted maniacs.

As 2023 kicks in, talented wild life is managing to survive and/or even grow, like forbidden fruit across dystopia, fuelling spirits and souls with song and dance. It’s OK to craft a composition that reflects what we’re all living through (well, 99% of us!). ‘Were You Even There’ manages to downplay and uplift simultaneously, peak Oasis veined analogue music of the digital age. Cold Water Swimmers, mix traditional courtesy with new (r)age.

Uh? Well, at winter solstice (mid December), Chris Bridgett had two things to say, one day after the other, on the health-safari hellsite (a.k.a. twitter) that struck a chord.

“There is just too much sadness today. Too much division too much anger. I've had enough today. going underground and fucking it all off for a bit until my head is in a better place. Bye for now.”

and

“You know #fuckit I'm not going underground for any fucker. I've had to fight for everything in my life and I'm not stopping now. I think the world will be a better place with me in the mosh pit hitting back. We go again.”

YES. One of Us!

…but additionally gifted with “stay strong” tuned DIY DNA.

Days are getting brighter, warmer, longer. Play this music. and personally feel it ‘Were You Even There’ is already getting radio support from Manchester XS etc., and sussed independents. Cold Water Swimmers are in various #OnesToWatch 2023 (including ours, there’s an LP ahoy!). Recommended listening.

The best days are in the summertime
Light nights and drinking dry white wine
Hear the birds singing in the trees
They're singing just for me

You lay down beside me, told me a lie
what was last night all about
Were you even there

The fact that between the mainstream media and interdependent allies, there are approximately a thousand hot names tipped (or not, that’s how our situationist adventures began) for this year, should be something to celebrate at all levels for all music tastes.

If you are a fan of the every day getting a surreal twist by a song, then the gently Beatlesque introduction to ‘Were You Even There’ is the opening curtain to our next everyday, dryly observed dramas. (Were you even there when I kicked down the door?)

Mark E Smith died on the day that Cold Water Swimmers formed…