Swarming Branch aspire to be the modern Midwestern Steely Dan. The band's name is a reference to both the nature of its membership, which is intentionally and perpetually in flux, and its sound, which features densely worded slant rhyme over intertwining, capricious, often improvised melodies.
Swarming Branch is a band engaged in three seemingly disparate pursuits: elaborating folk music’s four-chord strum with complex extensions and substitutions, winking at the theater of glam rock from dive bar stages around the country without causing the cynics to spray beer out of their nostrils, and inviting the droning, unbridled tendencies of modal jazz to gradually displace rock and roll’s typical pentatonic shapes.
On Surreal Number, Swarming Branch’s newest LP on SofaBurn Records, the group has temporarily suspended some of its formal experimentation to create a straightforward collection of ten songs.
Catch Swarming Branch at MidPoint Music Festival on Saturday, September 23rd on the Skyline Stage (5th Street) at 5:00p.
