Everything grows on Nagasaki Swim’s sophomore album. Two years after their debut The Mirror, the ever-evolving project of Rotterdam-based songwriter Jasper Boogaard returns with a broadened scope and an even more collaborative spirit. Band members new-and-old, comrades, and alt-country compatriots like Mike Brenner (Songs: Ohia) and Molly Germer (Alex G) all get their time to shine on Boogaard's expansive ode to the garden-variety, to the bad days, to changing in a world that’s changing around you.
After finishing The Mirror, an album made in pursuit of purpose, Boogaard soon found himself back in the studio, working on its follow-up. At first, this meant trying to overcome the aimlessness of that initial stage – until the aimlessness revealed a value in and of itself. As such, Everything Grows is not an album about breakthroughs, but about the toiling and the tinkering. Like a tree that grows without any preconceived plan or direction, Nagasaki Swim is now firmly in the process of branching out and putting down roots with perennial abandon. Everything happens as it happens.
Not that it was an easy album to make - quite the contrary. Much of Everything Grows came from time ostensibly wasted. A moment of downtime during rehearsal, a week before the band was set to record at Katzwijm Studios, revealed the hidden piano prowess of band member Kat Kalkman, prominently displayed on ‘Wait’. Mindlessly perusing the Yellowstone National Park public sound library led Boogaard to write ‘American Dipper’, about the eponymous bird that cheerily sings, regardless of weather or season. ‘Big Red Truck’ came together almost unwittingly, recorded by two microphones lying around Boogaard's home studio, the lyrics scribbled down just moments prior.
Everything Grows sees Boogaard heading out into the world and finding his processes reflected in the trees, the birds, and the changing climate. It instills even the more laborious arrangements, some of them recorded across two continents, with an innate airiness, reminiscent of Big Thief, Florist, and John Prine. As if out of the clear blue sky. With the lap and pedal steel promoted to a starring role, the added trumpet, and the heightened pathos of ‘Window’, ‘Eternal’ and ‘The Weight Pt. 2’, Boogaard's love of both jaunty country-folk and Elverumesque naturalism feel more aligned than ever.
- Ruben van Dijk
credits
released March 3, 2023
Written & performed by Jasper Boogaard
Guitars & piano by Kat Kalkman
Bass & backing vocals by Jasper Werij
Drums by Jim Luijten
Ending guitars (track 1) by Tom Morris
Lapsteel (track 1) by Wessel van der Spek
Backing vocals (tracks 1, 2 & 3) by Jente Lammerts
Trumpet (tracks 1 & 3) by Marty Gottlieb-Hollis
Lap/pedal steel (tracks 2 & 3) by Mike “Slo-Mo” Brenner recorded by Danny Murillo at Headroom Philadelphia
Violin/arrangement (tracks 5 & 7) by Molly Germer
Recorded at Katzwijm Studio & Studio Noordsingel
Produced & mixed by Jasper Boogaard
Additional engineering by Daan Duurland & Jasper Werij
Mastered by Christian Bethge
Photography by Cheong Park
If you have a fondness for expertly wrought roots-rock with sharp lyrics and aching vocals, look no further—“Strangers” is for you. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 8, 2022