There’s something weird – and instantly wonderful – in the opening seconds of “Spring Break Your Heart,” the new video from LA’s SWIMM. A woman stands with blood-red hair, a snow-white face with a single drawn-on eyebrow, and an unshakeable commitment to her performance. As she delivers the opening lines to the band’s enchanting, sun-kissed psychedelic ode to the secret joy one finds within the haze of a sunny day, we find that she has an audience: a clown-faced paramour.
From there unfolds an adventure of deep symbolism and thrown tomatoes, of Polaroid pictures and the dangers of art, of the euphoria of finding your tribe and the unmistakable spark when you connect with another on this spinning rock in the middle of space. This vivid affair is perfectly matched by SWIMM’s haunting song, the sparsity of the track helping to give this video the feeling of a waking dream. “Spring Break Your Heart,” in itself, is a delight, the smile one gets after taking the first sip of beer out of a cold can on a hot June afternoon. It should be on the soundtrack of your next pool party, and if it’s not, leave.
“I always wanted to convey some spirit of Spring Break in this video,” SWIMM bandmember Cookie shares with HollywoodLife. “But the noir clown photo collaboration between Lexi Noblitt and Zachary Gray hit me immediately. I wanted to bring the dark beauty they found in those photos into a world of wacky community—cause essentially, that’s what Spring Break is to me. This led to the theme of ‘finding your people’ again after the 2020 social hiatus. On a grander scale, people are always saying how important it is to find the right people in Los Angeles. It is true. This place is fucked without the gems of friends you can rely on. So in a way, the video became a symbol of friendship but also finding the niche where you’ll thrive.”
For many, this might be the first introduction to the West Coast band. They released Sentimental Porno in 2018, the same year they released the deluxe edition of their Beverly Hells EP. Earlier in 2021, the group teamed up with Lauren Ruth Ward for “You Never Fake It,” ushering in the next phase of the band’s sound. As for what listeners should take away from “Spring Break Your Heart,” Cookie thinks it should fill one’s heart with some grit and splendor.
“It was the height of quarantine, and I was confined to our warehouse in East LA,” says the SWIMM member. “What was once a hub for social/creative meanderings became what felt like a dystopian experiment box. This song was total escapism for me. It became this time machine for me. The sounds I was finding and the lyrics, which call back to first love in Florida—beach bars, swimming in the ocean at night, sneaking into resort pools, the excitement you feel on that last day of class before break; it all gave me the closest thing I was going to get to Spring Break in the year of our sadistic Lord, 2020. This song and the magic in the ephemera it represents really wove itself into the hearts of my bandmates and me in a way that most songs haven’t.”
Fans can expect to be touched – metaphorically and with consent – by SWIMM as the band continues to share new music, new visuals, and new expressions. Just don’t forget your facepaint.