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Portland Mercury :: 06.04.09

Since 2003, Jon Miller and Em Brownlowe have been carving out a niche and a sound uniquely suited to their Swallows project. Combining sparse instrumentals with literate NW post-punk—plus queercore influence and orientation—the duo have graced stages around the nation and supported legends such as Team Dresch. With a consistent output of recordings notable for Miller's skittery drums and Brownlowe's mesmerizing rhythmic guitars and strong, resonant voice, Swallows are a tireless act that continues to hone their craft while currently working on their first full-length recording since 2007's Loud Machines. A new demo streaming on their MySpace page showcases the powerful coordination that has developed between the two musicians, their two instruments interlacing effortlessly while Brownlowe's voice dances on top. - Maranda Bish, Portland Mercury
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The Feminist Review :: 10.28.08

Swallows are a living embodiment of the Pacific Northwest's DIY spirit. When the band (guitarist-singer Em Brownlowe and drummer Jon Miller) decided to release a remix album of tracks from their recent record, Cloud Machines, they had the novel idea of taking it to their Myspace page and their own website to ask for collaborators. Swallows simply asked their fans: "Hey, wanna remix us?" Ask and ye shall receive. The result was Loud Machines, a self-released dance-y collection of radical re-imaginings of the band's angular yet melodic, edgy indie rock.

The band is clearly the offspring of the riot grrl movement (twelve years too late, they joke). They admit that there are more women making music around them now than when they started playing five years ago, and ideologically take a somewhat post-gay stance to their place in music and culture. While Brownlowe states that they don't view themselves as a 'queer band', Miller is quick to point out that she feels "there is an abundance of lesbians who play guitar" in bands and there's less expectation to be "a gay boy playing drums." Both agree that it's important to be honest about their sexuality for the sake of queer visibility (both are happily partnered and the two couples share a home together), but say that creating a cohesive climate for integrated politics in the Northwest scene is more important than the microcosm of sexual politics.

Brownlowe jokes, "We don't write overtly political songs, but I registered three people to vote last night. We don't sing songs about my lesbian lover; well, except for the one where we do." What's more refreshing is how candid the duo is about making music because they love to play, not for money or fame. The punk aesthetic marries well with their art rock approach, as these fashion savvy, pop culture junkies indulge us with some of the most inventive and energetic music coming out of Portland, Oregon.

Refusing to be staid with the stereotypical Northwest sound, the band mixes ethereal vocals atop impressive drum overdubs to create a mix that comes at the listeners from all angles. Brownlowe's guitar melodically carries the listener through the complex compositions. Ambitious, talented, gracious, humble, witty, and, above all else, thoroughly rocking, The Swallows could be "the next big thing." For now, they seem content being just what they are, and that's great.

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Shebang Magazine #1

Hailing from Portland, Swallows are boy-girl duo Jon Miller and Em Brownlowe who cite themselves as being informed by blues, indie-rock, surf-rock and the ‘rejection of preconception’. Me With Trees Towering is their first full length release, and trust me, it’s good. Really, really good in fact. ‘Flight (Take Off)’ brings the record to a peaceful, pacing beginning and could be a lost track from Cat Power’s You Are Free due to it’s ethereal harmonies and gloomy yet uplifting quality. ‘I’d Like To Be Your Man’s’ dulcet, bluesy tones echo the Gossip’s early records and are paired with honey-coated, sleepy vocals and blissful harmonies. ‘All of the Wind in the World Blows to Me’ is the love child of early Sleater-Kinney and The Casual Dots and the organ in ‘Surf Song OR’ provides a Horrors-esque quality to the jaunty, eerie melody. I know it’s sloppy to constantly compare Swallows to other bands, but it’s hard to escape the fact that despite their own unique sound, it’s easy to hear that they must have a damn good record collection between them. Or just a good ear for dry, arty-rock. Other stand out tracks include ‘Wait Until Dark’, a fuzzy, cute bop-a-long and the thumping, sneering ‘Last Call’. Me With Trees Towering is an eclectic mix of experimental, fuzzed-out tracks brimming with stomping melodies and sedate harmonies. Unusual but unpretentious, Swallows have hit the proverbial nail on the head here and provided a must-have album for anyone with a love of unpolished, raw noise paired with calming melodies.
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04.24.08 LocalCut: Cut of the Day

This Thursday’s cut of the Day is “Twilight’s Last Hour” by local guitar/drum duo Swallows. I asked member Em Brownlowe to give me the lowdown on the lush track:

"Both Jon and I agree that “Twilight’s Last Hour” is our favorite track on Cloud Machines. Twilight’s Last Hour was written in spring of 2006 in a dank rehearsal space located in the Industrial NW. We had just gotten back from our first west coast tour and immediately wanted to start writing new material. This was the first song we wrote for our sophomore EP, Cloud Machines and it was also the first track where we experimented with a loop pedal to incorporate both guitar parts I wrote for the ending. The music was created together throughout a few jam sessions. We initially joked around and called the tune, “Flamenco”, due to it’s opening guitar pattern.

The words were lifted from an old solo song I have. If I were to look deep into the word’s meaning and where I was at while writing it I guess I would say the song sort of deals with leaving parts of yourself behind in order to enter a new state of relationship or being. I feel like the music also goes along with this general theme by having three distinct parts that flow into each other seamlessly.

Over the next year we perfected the live performance and were able to replicate all guitar parts you hear on record live. It’s really fun to play live because once the ending comes up and we successfully record a live loop so I can play the lead on top of it the audience has gotten really excited.

In May of 2007, Swallows entered Kipp Crawford’s studio to record the music for Cloud Machines. “Twilight’s Last Hour” was recorded in only a few takes and Jon decided he wanted to experiment with playing three different drum parts on top of each other towards the end of the song, creating a one man percussive army. I recorded the vocals in our new (not quite as dank) rehearsal space on the East Banks to save some cash and have privacy. Afterwards, I brought the tracks to Kipp Crawford to mix with the music and voila!" - Em Brownlowe
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Curve Magazine : March 08

The Portland, Ore. duo return with a solid five song EP [Cloud Machines] followup to last year's, Me With Trees Towering, filled with dark but perky emo-psyechdelia-grunge that owes as much to DIY punk as it does to 70's art rock.

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02.13.08 SF Bay Guardian

Drink, then Swallows
The Portland twosome are building a pop factory in the sky
BY THEO SCHELL-LAMBERT

When Jon Miller was a boy, his parents pulled off an impressive trick: convincing him there was beauty to be found on the New Jersey Turnpike. Wondering, as any hopeful naïf might, about the strange fogs puffing from roadside refineries, the lad was given a celestial explanation. Those were, he was told, cloud machines.

Miller is old enough now to be a bit more suspicious of Garden State industrial output, but that entrancing image gets new life as the title of his second record with Portland, Ore., duo Swallows. The pair, Miller on drums and pal Em Brownlowe covering vocals and guitar, have been honing a sinewy turn on Pacific Northwest alt-rock since 2003. They call it garage pop, but that term feels too claustrophobic, too sweaty for the sound they develop on their Cloud Machines EP (Church of Girl, 2007).

The previous Swallows effort, Me with Trees Towering (Cherchez la Femme Projects, 2006), was fairly sludgy, with guitars thrust forward in the mix and Brownlowe's piercing vocals left to fight it out from the rear. Cloud Machines is no less textural, but it is largely free of such gridlock. Its filthy space is bigger. Put a warehouse or a factory in front of that pop.

But be sure to keep calling it pop. Cloud Machines' intrigue stems from the cohabitation it gins up: cheery American melody making keeps its shape amid angular chord charts and sharp vocal tones. On lead track "Anchors," Brownlowe has moments of channeling Patti Smith, but she's also describing how she'll kick out the jam: "Start to move your feet / Jon's gonna find his beat / And it'll burn the house down." Much like its titular image, which envisions a utopia on dystopia's home turf, the record gets fantasy and disaffection all mingled up.

I asked Miller and Brownlowe about this, and they confirmed that their songs are meant not just as tracks but as ditties. Brownlowe copped to aiming for "memorable and catchy" music: "stick in your head"–type cuts. But on this point, even the band isn't sure where the parody ends and the sincerity begins. Brownlowe related how the most sugary track here, "When You're in Love," initially started as a "mockumentary" dashed off as a joke with her girlfriend. Portland bands, after all, do not sing things like "When you're in love, nothing else matters / When you're in love, you smell the flowers." But then she showed the gag to Miller, and "he wanted to write a verse too," she said.

The vocals are key to Swallows' evolution on Cloud Machines, but equally crucial are Miller's increasingly adventurous drums. The group's earlier songs hint at impatience with straight-ahead rock rhythms ...— both "Words of Love" and "Pulsar Heart Attack" from Me with Trees Towering include unorthodox tom-tom rumbles — and tradition has now been pretty thoroughly dismissed. The beats of Swallows 2.0 almost encroach on world music territory, an effect increased by Miller's out-of-order kit and unusual tuning. He claims to have copied his intervals from "Three Blind Mice," but whatever manual he's using, it's effective. On album closer "Language Is Restless," for example, he uses shifty rhythms to leave the melody unmoored and adrift, cleverly scrambling our wish for a quick fix.

All of this sullied pop got me thinking about another image, complementary to those merry smokestacks, that Brownlowe detailed in an e-mail about Swallows' early days. When she and Miller first began playing together — in a "dank practice space in the industrial part of Portland run by a crazy alcoholic stoner" — they cut an EP as Dirty Shirley, a reference to the vodka-laced Shirley Temples that fueled the sessions.

Other bands just have beers. These two had to spike a nonalcoholic drink.
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12.08.07 QPDX

The fantastically stylish male/female combo are likely to be playing songs from their new EP from Church of Girl Records, Cloud Machines. While very reminiscent of 90s Northwest girl rock, Swallows manage to infuse "Language is Restless" with an ethereal post-millenium feel while allowing songs like "Anchors" to hold down a Puddletown tradition that manages to still feel energizing. - Alley Hector

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12.06.07 Portland Mercury:

Did you ever realize that "Physical," Olivia Newton-John's schlocky 1981 hit and soundtrack to aerobics videos the world over, had a low-fi blues-rock hook trapped inside of it, yearning to break free? Swallows did. So they went to work, let the groove loose, and released an astonishing cover version on their "Physical" single back in 2004.

Truth be told, it's not really a cover; it's more like an intervention followed by heavy-duty rehab. Guitarist/vocalist Em Brownlowe and drummer Jon Miller take the song apart, throw away all but its most essential elements, and rebuild it again on top of a clean drumbeat, suggestive whispers, and some choice guitar noodling. Sung in Brownlowe's alto croon, even the famously terrible lyric "Let me hear your body talk" sounds somehow sexy.

The "Physical" makeover is a perfect introduction to the quirky musical logic behind Swallows. The inventive, ambitious, and adorable duo connected via Chainsaw Records' online message board after moving to Portland in the summer of 2003. They released a handful of EPs and singles, including the EP Physical, before digging in their heels for last year's Me with Trees Towering, their first proper full-length and a solidification of their style to date.

After a label jump from Cherchez la Femme to Church of Girl Records, Swallows are back this year with new material in the form of the Cloud Machines EP. Andrew Roberts' beautiful cover artwork shows two swallow-like birds flying across a crumbling urban streetscape, with a factory streaming brown smoke in the distance.

Cloud Machines' second song, "When You're in Love," falls a bit flat (sample lyric: "'Cause when you're in love/nothing else matters/Yeah, when you're in love/you smell the flowers"). But Miller and Brownlowe are in fine form elsewhere, particularly "Twilight's Last Hour," in which Brownlowe gets a chance to show off her formidable 16th-note-shredding axe skills. "Everyone on Trial" and "Language Is Restless" offer more riffage, plus richer vocals and a political subtext. They showcase a band coming into its own, capitalizing on its potential, and—dare I say it?—getting physical. Ms. Newton-John would surely approve. - LIZZIE EHRENHALT

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11.21.07 URB MAGAZINE:

It's tough to describe the type of sound that the duo of Emily Brownlowe and Jonathan Miller are trying to establish. Together known as Swallows this twosome's buzz is starting to bubble above the radar and into the consciousness of many. - Som Khamsaysoury

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11.14.07 WWEEK: Cloud Machines Review

Male-female duos are an indie-rock novelty. Think Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss of Portland’s own Quasi and, perhaps most notoriously, Jack and Meg White of the White Stripes. These duos have two things in common: Both believe that two people can record a complete-sounding rock album, and both contain super-tight members (divorcees, in fact).

Likewise, Portland’s self-proclaimed “postmodern, psych-emotive rock” band Swallows fits the close-knit indie-rock duo mold. Singer-guitarist Em Brownlowe and drummer Jon Miller moved to Portland in ’03, soon after meeting on a looking-for-bandmates message board. While the band members are only close friends (both Brownlowe and Miller are queer), the experimental pop music on Swallows’ new EP, Cloud Machines, is certainly intimate. The guitars and drums are carefully layered and thoughtfully arranged. And when Brownlowe—who sounds like a young Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders—sings in her low-pitched voice, “We’re never gonna break up/ Until we’re dead…When you’re in love/ It never ends” on “When You’re In Love,” she might as well be serenading Miller.

Closeness provides for tight-sounding music—the songs on Cloud Machines flow seamlessly between tracks—two band members masquerading as a three- or four-piece. Brownlowe and Miller make beautiful music together—but their chemistry and talent is most clearly glimpsed in moments where all the production falls away, leaving only drums, guitar and vocals. -Paige Richmond
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10.20.07 JUST OUT: Welcome to Siren Nation Grassroots festival celebrates women, art and community

What’s better than women in rock? Queer women in rock! The Siren Nation festival might be about women in music first and foremost, but it’s also a safe haven for creative queers of every stripe.

Although the grassroots effort has been in the works for about two years now, a late-breaking development added some unexpected drama to the well-planned event: Headlining band The Gossip canceled at the last minute, but the hard-working organizers announced an exciting replacement act Oct. 15. Portland-based groundbreaking and seminal queercore band Team Dresch has agreed to do a reunion show. In addition to that hot ticket, Siren Nation will showcase these exciting queer artists:

Swallows is one of those cute-as-a-button indie bands with which the Northwest is so abundantly blessed. Describing and labeling a band’s music is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall, but Swallows is roughly branded as experimental indie-pop with a post-riot grrrl vibe. It describes its own music as “postmodern psych-emotive rock” and itself as “awesome rock and roll fag/ettes.” Other musical influences include blues, indie-rock, surf-rock and “the rejection of preconception.” The duo consists of Em Brownlowe on guitar and vocals and Jonathan Miller on drums, melodica and miscellaneous other instruments.

Brownlowe hails from San Diego and was drawn to Portland by the Northwest’s burgeoning music scene, the best in the country for women in rock. While still in San Diego she saw Sarah Dougher and Corin Tucker’s band Cadallaca perform and was inspired. Miller made the trek to Portland from Massachusetts and met Brownlowe on a message board seeking bandmates; they both arrived in PDX on the same day, and the dynamic duo was formed in the summer of 2003.

Swallows’ first recording was an EP released in 2004 under the name Dirty Shirley, limited to only 126 copies and recorded in a musty Portland basement. This was followed by a single later that year under the new name Swallows titled “Physical,” a sinewy, radical reworking of the Olivia Newton-John song of the same name from the ’80s. Then came another EP in 2005, We Love to Be Astonished, plus a single featuring a remix of an earlier Swallows song by local indie superstar Radio Sloan, who has worked with The Need, Kathleen Hanna and various other indie girl bands as well as mainstream rock ladies like Courtney Love and Peaches.

The big fruit finally fell from the tree last October with the band’s first LP, Me with Trees Towering, fittingly released on Dougher’s up-and-coming label, Cherchez La Femme. Also in 2006, Miller and Brownlowe rounded up 14 local bands to produce We Made This, a homemade compilation CD distributed for free that drew accolades from the Portland indie rock community as a pleasant DIY alternative to typical deep-pocket promotion and distribution practices in the mainstream music world.

According to the band’s semi-official Web page, the pair are hard at work challenging themselves to follow their successful debut release with a new sound projected to emerge by the end of this year on another fledgling label, Church of Girl Records. Read more about Siren Nation featuring women/queers in music, film, art and workshops - Tony LeTigre

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03.08.07 EUGENE WEEKLY : Don't Judge an Album by Its Cover

Walking through rows upon rows of CD racks, you stop at the letter S. S is a good letter; lots of bands in that category. Toward the back is an album with the band's name placed discreetly in the lower left corner. It's an earthy album cover, full of rich sunlight, overgrown foliage and tall, slender trees. But before you pass the band off as another indie-folk duo, consider what's happening on the inside.

Me With Trees Towering is Swallows' first full-length album, released on Cherchez La Femme Projects. On it the Portland-based duo melds a little of every type of rock: indie, surf, riot grrrl, punk and even in places some pop punk. Em Brownlowe (vocals, guitar, keys) and Jon Miller's (drums, melodic) 12 track album begins with a slow but steady drum beat that compels your head to nod along with it. By mid-album the tempo has changed and the mood has changed. Miller, who got his first drum set in the 6th grade, picks up the pace to stay in time with the surf-rock organ. On "The Lonesome Cowboy," the duo is fusing blues and indie rock. While the song begins moody with help from a slide guitar, halfway through the band uses thumping kick drums and heavy electric guitar to create the kind of suspense-building found in so many emo songs. Fortunately, there are no whiny prepubescent vocals here. -Amanda Burhop

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03.06.07 ARCATA EYE

Swallows, a Portland-based rock group, is making another trip down to Humboldt this week. Swallows is a fantastic bluesy punk duo made up of Em Brownlowe on guitar and vocals, and John Miller on the drums. The band started in 2003 when Brownlowe and Miller met on a message board before either moved to Portland. Both were looking for someone to play music with once they arrived in the northwest, and thus Swallows was born. The duo’s songs are rough and raw, reminiscent somewhat of early ’90s garage and grunge bands. They recently released their first album, Me With Trees Towering, last year, and have been slowly climbing the ranks in the Portland music scene. Both nights they’re playing free of cover charge, but I suggest bringing some money for the album. - Jasmine Loucks

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Skyscraper Magazine Review: Swallows Me With Trees Towering, Winter 2007 Issue

On the opening track, Swallows, a duo from Portland, Oregon, set conflicting rhythms in drums, guitars, and keyboard playing against each other in a manner that initially bemuses, but then amuses, "Flight (Takeoff)" then does just that, pushing into a driven dance -punk exercise. "I'd Like To be Your Man" moves the disc on with a bluesy guitar tapping out an insanely catchy hook. Debut full-length Me With Trees Towering is not a prettified record. It's a pimply, gangly adolescent with knees knocked and elbows akimbo, and that's a good thing. The rough edges have been left in place; the album sounds as though it has been recorded with little knob-twiddling, and i bet guitarist/vocalist emBROWNLOWe and drummer Jon Miller kick ass on a stage. "Words of Love," according to the liner notes, was inspired by the Mama Cass song, but the frenetic pace, sludgy guitar and pounding drums are miles away from Cass' serene pop. "Surf Song OR" is a noodling delight, riding on a thick organ and, you guessed it, a wild surf guitar. On a label with plenty of fresh talent, Swallows demands and deserves attention - Michael Meade

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01.29.07 Willamette Week Local Cut

Shortly after receiving a very favorable, if quite odd, write up in Punk Planet, Swallows enlisted the services of Mark Kohl–not the filmmaker who’s worked with “America’s Most Wanted” and done commercials for McDonalds and AT&T by the same name–to make them a video and introductory documentary. I wrote a Cut of the Day a little while back for “Flight (Takeoff)” because I think it’s the young queer-core duo’s best song. Apparently they agree since they not only made a video for it, but also used it as the background in the documentary. If you watch both of these, when you start watching the second video you’ll get deja-vu because it starts with exactly the same music.

The “Flight (Takeoff)” video has some visually pleasing moments like the duo’s striped shirts in contrast to the striped walls of the Green House basement. It also seems to have a cool thing going on with the tall woman in the big coat with tights “buzzing around,” so to speak, in the background of most of the shots. I can’t help but wonder what she’s doing back there, though. Is she friend or foe? Stalker or angel? I am left with the sense that the video is lacking an ending–I wish it was building to something, like the intensity of the song. My favorite moment in the documentary is when vocalist/guitarist emBROWNLOWe and drummer Jonathan Miller realize they both played viola.

The short film is full of cute details about the band, but I wish it told me more about Swallows and who they are what they represent and why we ought to think they’re really important. I’m inclined to say that Swallows is a band who has answers to those questions, but they aren’t addressed here. That doesn’t mean this isn’t a fun video to watch, especially if you’re interested in how bands get together, like I am. - Jason Simms

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Rear Guard (PSU)

Portland rockers, Swallows, have made a name for themselves over the last two years as one of the Northwest’s preeminent queer bands.

Their stripped down guitar and drums lineup is deceptive. It seems like the lack of members would thin the band’s sound down to the point that actually rocking could become intangible. But this isn’t the case. Drummer Jon Miller plays his toms almost melodically. His thick pounding lines fill out the low registers and make almost no use of conventional beats. Em Brownlowe’s guitar is multi layered, pouring on coat after coat of textures reminiscent of the best of 80’s dark-wave, mixed with the guts and snarling riffs of early grunge. Combined with the soulful timbers of Brownlowe’s vocals, Swallow’s sound is raw, glittering, dancy and fist pumping all at once.

The band’s star has been on a steady rise since they formed two years ago. Both Miller and Brownlowe were moving to Portland independently, and met via a chat board a week before they arrived from the east coast and San Diego . They went through a smattering of band names, like Led Kitten, and Dirty Shirley before settling on Swallows because of it’s obvious double meaning of the bird, and swallowing cum. Regardless of what their name was, they played any gig that came along, assembled a local comp with accompanying festival (We Made This PDX), and garnered enough attention for a packed performance at PDX Pop Now, not to mention a record deal with Cherchez La Femme records.

Swallows first album, Me with Trees Towering, was produced by Radio Sloan, and ex-guitarist for Courtney Love and a member of Peaches band. The record delivers all the punch of their live shows, and with a few extras from guest musicians and the studio process, running the gambit from indie-pop to all out r-a-w-k rock!

Swallows is one of Portland most exciting bands to watch evolve, and Me with Trees Towering is an album not to be missed. -Josh Gross

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Punk Planet #77

If you believe the weird, weird world of modern music, then the Swallows don't really exist. There are several reasons why. One: they're on the small and independent Cherchez La Femme Projects, a post-Mr. Lady label that's basically operated out of Sarah Dougher's kitchen. (She sells organic doggie treats from there, too.) Two: they're from Portland, which is not east of the Mississippi and thus way, way the heck off the honcho/hipster radar. Three: they're openly queer, which is brave and important but also risky, as far as mass marketing is concerned. Four: they're a male/female duo named after a bird, which means that every other critic compares them to Quasi, the Like, or Mates of State (Swallows sound a little like Quasi, but not much), and then cracks a joke about "no more bands named after wolves! Birds are the new black! Ever heard Swan Island?"

Basically,Swallows' Emily Brownlowe and Jonathan Miller have the shit end of a short straw. This fact probably isn't surprising to you, dear Punk Planeteer, but that doesn't make it any less lame. Actually, it's superlame, because these kids have talent and hustle. They should have packed basements, deserve jammed venues (all-ages, of course), and in a few years will definitely merit packed clubs, cross-country.

Brownlowe and Miller are barely twenty, but they've been playing together for almost 3 years. Before this, their avian incarnation, they called themselves Dirty Shirley, Led Kitten, Dot Dot Dot, and Yarokei, and they opened for the likes of Anna Oxygen, Rebecca Gates, and Emily Herring.

Swallows are young, but they've a fair amount of experience under their (star-studded, black plastic) belts. Here, it shows and shines. There are some obvious influences I hear riot grrl rhetoric and vocal curls à la Mecca Normal's Jean Smith, plus obvious nods to Mama Cass and Lyn Hejinian but there's also a lot that's genuine Swallows. For one, there's Brownlowe's voice, which is always brightly clear, coming sometimes from the head and others from the gut. (Occasionally, she bleats like a mini-Corin Tucker.) There is the mix of guitar and keys (Brownlowe) with drums and melodica (Miller), a combination that none of the duos mentioned above use as consistently or innovatively. (See also "Surf Song OR," which features Dougher on organ and Brownlowe's voice, zooming from headphone to headphone.) There's a queer love song (cheekily titled "I'd Like To Be Your Man"), and even cuckoo noises, sweetly hooted at the beginning and end of "All of the Wind in the World Blows To Me," a song that easily fills the darker corners of your head.

Me With Trees Towering isn't a crowning achievement there's plenty of room to grow but it's a fine beginning, and I'm definitely looking forward to whatever these two'll do next. - Mairead Case

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12.01.06 West Coast Performer Magazine

At least a hundred people are packed into a small art gallery in downtown Portland and dozens more are lining the sidewalk out front. They are not welcoming a new art movement or even an artist, but rather are joining in the celebration of a new CD by the duo known as Swallows. “It was crazy,” says singer/guitarist Em Brownlowe about the band’s CD release show. “I was sitting at the merch table and people kept coming up to ask, ‘Have Swallows played yet?’ I had tons of friends who I didn’t even see because there were so many people there.” Feeding off the energy of the crowd, Swallows put on a raucous and loud performance. Brownlowe shoved her guitar neck in the face of those nearby and bounced around the small area afforded her, all the while pumping out fractured chords and singing in her distinctive come hither/ back off fashion. Drummer Jon Miller meanwhile circled around his drumbeats, ready to strike into a crashing polyrhythm at a moment’s notice. It was, in a word, electrifying.

The buzz surrounding both the performance and the band is palpable, and after one listen to Me With Trees Towering, it’s easy to understand why. Brownlowe and Miller have created a beautifully messy sound, combining tribal rhythms and off-kilter guitar work that is equal parts early ’80s no wave and late ’90s math rock. The album is both a warm nod to the Riot Grrl movement that marked Brownlowe’s early musical endeavors and a bold step in a more experimental direction. Miller says the group is especially influenced by “the very progressive pop music that’s being made right now. Those groups that are reevaluating classical structures in music.” This reevaluation even enters the realm of the group’s lyrical content where the duo uses experimental poetry techniques or (on the propulsive “Hejinian Hymn”) cribs phrases and words from the book My Life by Lyn Hejinian. The group has also commissioned lyrics from writers and friends because, according to Brownlowe, “they could write them better than us, so why not?”

Swallows do their best to encourage and promote the work of other artists, including photographer Julia Laxer, whose work graces the cover of their new album, and by putting together a compilation CD of like-minded artists (including The Vulturines, Autopilot and Morgan Grace) “who believe in the concept of peer promotion to counteract the competitive music scene,” according to the press notes for the disc. It is this work that Miller and Brownlowe have put into networking with fellow musicians and the larger artistic community in Portland that helped the band get voted into the lineup for this past summer’s PDX Pop Now! Festival, and according to Brownlowe, helped to stir up “a lot more press than we thought possible.” Brownlowe continues, “There’s a lot of momentum right now.”

The two will admit that having a couple of more recognizable names in the independent music world working on their behalf has helped give the band a leg up. The majority of Me With Trees Towering was recorded with the former frontwoman for The Need, Radio Sloan, and the disc is being released by Sarah Dougher’s up-and-coming Cherchez La Femme Records. “It totally sucks that this is the way it has to be,” says Miller, “but it helps to have these names attached to us.” The band got signed to Cherchez La Femme after Brownlowe submitted a demo following Dougher’s call for submissions last year. Miller likens the label to such forebears as Mr. Lady and Chainsaw, well known for its loud support of and affiliation with the gay and lesbian community. “There aren’t labels doing what they used to do,” says Brownlowe. “Hopefully Cherchez La Femme will be like that. It’s really exciting to be one of the first bands on that label.”

Currently lining up their second West Coast tour (planned for March 2007), Swallows’ goals, for all the buzz surrounding them these days, are relatively modest. According to Miller, “We just want to have one solid show in Portland and one or two good shows out of town each month.” Brownlowe echoes those ideals: “Jon and I were talking about our magic number being 30. If we can play any town in the country and have at least 30 people come out to see us, then it will be worth it.” - Bob Ham

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11.24.06 3:AM MAGAZINE

[On Me With Trees Towering] Em Brownlowe's guitar work is elegant and uses a wide range of tones, from low-slung garage to the off-kilter grooves of alt-rock, with the occasional floaty melodic cascade thrown in for good measure. Her keys twinkle like a child's toy, and her voice, although occasionally subsumed by the rhythm section, still shines with dark power. Most of these songs are under 3 minutes, and they don't all have the clearest idea of where they're going. 'Surf Song OR' lures you in with a Wipeout-esque riff before an odd, drummy middle bit, and then returns to the surf sound. Traditional vocals never emerge although she does shout "surf!" a bit. 'Hejinian Hymn' fares better, with overdriven bass pushing you through corridors of eerily isolated melody like a gun-barrel in the small of the back. There's an instant appeal to 'Wait Until Dark' -- the sort of song Grease's Pink Ladies might record for a class project in new wave. Brownlowe's pissed-off purr on 'Last Call' echoes around behind its precise, oppressive wall of New York post-punk like the revenge you can't bring yourself to take. All in all, Me With Trees Towering is the work of a bold musical spirit and a bloke who plays the drums, and well. This is less accomplished than her solo debut, but with some money behind them these ideas could certainly take the kind of shape to win them favour in the right places. - Richard O'Brien

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Punk Planet #76

In the mid-nineties, the kids at K-Records promised free CDs 4 Lyfe to anyone brave enough to tattoo herself with the label's logo. I wouldn't have done that, but I might consider the Cherchez La Femme version. The label, founded by Sarah Dougher in response to the post-Mr. Lady void, is dedicated to the work of "ladies and queers" like Katastrophe, Sara Jaffe, and Dougher herself. It's vital work, and few others are doing it so actively (even if Dougher hasn't updated her website since the spring). Basically, I'd wheatpaste telephone poles and stand in the front row for any and all of these artists. But I wanna dance, too, and most of them don't exactly get me twitching. Usually, I'm left frustrated, torn between truth in folk or ass-shaking misogyny. God bless the Swallows, a Portland guitar/drum duo with bruising toms and clear, blue sky vox. They're nowhere near Sleater-Kinney's technical expertise, but I will say that when Em Brownlowe's voice soars halfway through "All the Wind in the World," I thought of Corin and almost cried. (And when guest Ruth Yoder (Sick Sick Sister) growls "I'm so fabulous! I'm so pr-etty" on the Radio Sloan remix of "Still Still Still", I nearly pumped my fists on public transit.) This is a 9-minute, 3-song release, so you might want to save your pennies for the full-length (out now), but christjesuslord, buy it and meet me near the stage. - Mairead Case

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10.05.06 Willamette Week Local Cut

Swallows debut full-length comes out today, so I relistened to it to pick a track to share with you folks. I wanted to pick something other than “Flight (Takeoff)” because I wrote a few words on it for a listing in WW saying, “It’s a killer song that builds from a single, angular, Sleater-Kinney-esque guitar line into an atmospheric punk jam.” But, upon picking up Me with Trees Towering, again, I found “Flight” to be so clearly the standout track that I couldn’t bare to post anything else. So at the risk of being repetitious, here it is. Starting with a single part and slowly adding to it is an old rock trick, but it’s just done so well here. In fact the structure and progression of the entire track is what makes me like it so much. I love how the beat maintains a momentary dead stop even as a tom roll is inserted in what’s blank space at the beginning. Later the dead stop is traded for a soft snare roll, easing into a smoother beat and facilitating the airy breakdown in the middle, and all the transitions happen before you notice them. The song kicks in again with one of the catchiest riffs on the album, which, within a few seconds, congeals into the most rocking moment on the record. On “Flight,” Swallows manage to cover a lot of ground in terms of tempo and depth while impressively maintaining a flow. -Jason Simms

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10.05.06 Portland Mercury

I don't know if it's a shooting star, four-leaf clover, or some kind of fucking purple horseshoe, but something out there is watching over Swallows. And whatever it is, the force that brought together singer and guitarist Em Brownlowe and drummer Jon Miller has been working some seriously long hours. Years really. When it all began, Em was on one coast with Jon on the other. They didn't know each other, but in their respective homes, they both met Sarah Dougher (Cadallaca). At the time neither could have imagined that the singer they came to see would eventually release their first real album. "I snuck into a bar to see Sarah and her band play in New York," Jon tells me. "We talked about a song I thought meant one thing and Sarah laughed and told me that wasn't it at all." The experience tickled Dougher, and when Jon saw Cadallaca again, a year later, the band had written a song about that conversation. Em saw Sarah and Cadallaca in San Diego. "I was 14 and got my picture taken with each member of the band," she admits. "It was all very nerdy, but kind of inspiring too."

Eventually the two would be drawn to Portland. "I felt like there was a convergence of all types of artists going on and it seemed like the place to be," Jon says. "My boyfriend and I sold everything we owned, stuffed our clothes inside my drum set and drove out here." Em was on the same track. "A lot of the bands that I listened to, a lot of riot grrrl-oriented bands, came from Portland or Olympia. I saw a good music scene for women." The two met on a message board looking for band-mates a week before moving to Portland. They arrived the very same day. "We got away with one practice in my apartment before they threatened to kick us out," Em says.

At a coffee shop on Division, Em found a flyer seeking local artists and musicians for collaboration. She knew little about the label, but sent a demo anyway. The package was addressed to Cherchez la Femme Projects, the label of Sarah Dougher. Liking what she heard, Sarah eventually arranged to produce and release Swallows' debut album, Me with Trees Towering. At its best the disc recalls early Sleater-Kinney, with a more flighty and experimental Janet Weiss and without too much Carrie Brownstein. And maybe a pinch of Daydream Nation-era Sonic Youth if Kim played Thurston's guitar while he mashed the drums.

Dougher enlisted producer Radio Sloan (the Need, Peaches, Courtney Love's band the Chelsea, and others), Having two such experienced women involved impacted Em heavily. "There was one song, 'All the Wind in the World,' that Sarah challenged me to redevelop the vocal parts to, and because of that, it became such a better pop song." The album's opening track, "Flight," with its layered and more fully realized vocal and guitar melodies is easily the apex of Trees Tlowering. And even though they can't recreate all those overdubs live, Swallows remain equally committed to their live performance. "Our live show and the album are two very different experiences," Em explains. "We hope you'll like them both." - Andrew Tonry

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09.09.2006 Willamette Week

Swallows release their debut, Me with Trees Towering, this October, and let me tell you now, it has some really rockin' moments. I'd be pretty amazed to see the duo attempt "Flight (Takeoff)" live because lead woman Em Brownlowe would have to sing four or five parts and play guitar and keys. But if you can talk them into it, it's a killer song that builds from a single, angular, Sleater-Kinney-esque guitar line into an atmospheric punk jam. If you want to embarrass Swallows, request "Surf Song OR," one of a few tangential overreaches attempted on the record. - Jason Simms

09.01.06 Smother.net

Portland’s Swallows write complex guitar-centric pieces that are specifically designed to map out new and ingenious ways into your dance feet. Bluesy guitar and dance punk rhythms dominate while sheer call-out vocals rock and roll their way throughout “Me with Trees Towering”. Not bad at all.- J-sin

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08.02.06 Willamette Week Interview w/ Swallows about the We Made This Festival

Why didn't I think of that? We Made This: The ultimate DIY comp. [ROCK] Two things about Portland music fans: (1) Everyone likes a good mix CD or tape, and (2) nearly everyone is in a band. So why not make a mix of bands you know and have them give it to people? Jonathan Miller and Em Brownlowe of Swallows rounded up 14 local rock acts and gave them all a CD-R in a Ziploc bag with a single photocopied sheet and told them to reproduce and distribute. Now they've got 13 of those acts lined up for a free three-day festival slated for this weekend that—although it doesn't strive for the comprehensiveness and girth of last weekend's PDX Pop Now! Festival—may combine with the compilation to help a group of underground local bands increase the strength of their community with essentially no overhead. WW sat down with Jon and Em to discuss what they made. - Jason Simms

WW: How did the bands get selected for the comp?

emBROWNLOWe: A lot of the bands are bands that Swallows play with. We probably know two-thirds of these bands. They don't necessarily know each other. We're trying to bring together this whole community and trying to create a new underground scene. Jonathan Miller: We also found a lot of bands that we didn't know but that we had heard of through other bands or by chance. I was listening to those songs on the PDX Pop Now! website at random, and the Autopilot song came on, and I was like, "I have to get in touch with this girl; she's incredible."

WW: Why the gritty packaging?

Jon: I like to keep the cost [of production] as low as possible, but I know that some [of the included bands] are making their own covers to make it fit into a case. When we originally sent this out to everybody, this was sort of like the default: This is the cheapest, easiest, fastest way. There's no reason to spend a ton of money on promotion when you can do it grassroots. Bands don't need to be fighting for exposure.

Em: We're hoping that people who get this will think it's a cool concept and do one of their own.

WW: Any tips for someone who wants to give it a shot?

Jon: I would say if you asked a band to do it, and they don't get back to you within, like, three days, just find another band, because bands who don't follow through initially won't follow through later. The concept for this was something we've had for a really long time. I used to live in Massachusetts, and I tried to put together something like this there and it failed miserably. It was really unorganized, with the bands not being prompt, and it just got to the point where it was really frustrating.

WW: How important is the fact that We Made This is a free comp?

Em: I think it's pretty important. That was one of the things we were explaining to the bands—you have to pull your own weight—and they all knew [the comp] had to be given out for free. It's a promotional item, and it would be kind of hard to sell. These bands are all really on-top-of-it, smart, with-it people. These people are really pushing their art, and that's why they're on it—they want it to be out there. How successful has the comp been as a promotional item?

Jon: We want each band to make 75 to 100 copies and if a third of those [roughly 1,200] people like your music, and a third of that third come to see you, and a third of that third buy an album, you're still making a profit. [That would make around 44 albums.] We've had a lot of bands come across the MySpace page and be like, "How can we get on the next one?"

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02.06.06 Church Of Girl

They are only two: Emily Brownlowe (guitar + vocals + misc) and Jonathan Miller (drums + melodica + misc). In the summer of 2003, Jon (somewhere in Massachusetts) and Em (in San Diego) were making plans to move to Portland. They found each other on an internet message board – both looking for someone to play in a band with once they arrived in the creatve matrix of our fair city. Swallows radiate profuse sonic allure and devise astounding original compositions and ingenious reinventions. Their interpretation of Olivia Newton John’s “Physical” is brilliant and is so catchy that DJ Boy often finds himself singing it in the shower…no kidding. Their music is an amazing concoction of blues, garage, math rock, and indie-pop. It’s a little like listening to The Gossip, Cold Cold Hearts, The Need and The Belles all rolled into one. Em’s voice is clear and powerful with an impressive range of style and mood. - Mary Ann Naylor

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