Album Notes

Swimming Towards the Sun is a collective tribute to Simple Minds from 15 different indie bands. The opening track by Simon Hayward is a mellow and radically reinterpreted rendition of Scar, from the album Reel to Reel Cacophony.

The listener is then strapped into a virtual rocket which is New Gold Dream by techno masters, The Echoing Green. The adrenaline keeps pumping with Piston Picnique's radical reinvention of Seeing Out the Angel. This track, in particular, got rave reviews from Jim Kerr, lead singer of Simple Minds. He even claimed that Simple Minds would play Angel in that style soon in one of their live shows! Oh Jungeland is a tight cover of the original, but with vocals that feel more emotional than the Simple Minds version. Blow Up then takes Summertime to places where no one could ever imagine--possibly making one think of how Martin Fry and ABC would have covered the song.

But this is just the beginning of an amazing ride through the Simple Minds back catalog on Swimming Towards the Sun. Every track has been meticulously honed to perfection, making this a fitting tribute to one of the best rock bands of all time. Packaged in a beautiful digipack with original artwork by Oliver Tully, this CD is extremely limited (only 1000 copies in existence!).