Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.
€5EUR or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of The View From Up There
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.
ships out within 13 days
edition of 300
Purchasable with gift card
€25EURor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
All 3 Nagasaki Swim albums, pressed on colored vinyl. The View From Up There (yellow), Everything Grows (clear), The Mirror (pink). Includes a unique polaroid from recording The View From Up There
Includes unlimited streaming of The View From Up There
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Nagasaki Swim writes songs that make you feel brave, even if you're just running out to get some groceries, or turning onto the highway. Sure, Jasper Boogaard has clearly listened to his fair share of angsty music in his twenty-seven years, but that is not the nature of his steadfast third LP, The View From Up There, which takes the Rotterdam-based indie folk band into the realm of Rock Music.
Within an hour of purchasing his first car, a second-hand Mazda, Jasper had tacked on a Cassandra Jenkins bumper sticker that read 'YES! THIS IS JUST A HARD DRIVE'. It summed up perfectly the road trip we embarked on the very next day – my personal highlight being the moment we realized just how unreliable the clutch was while on an incredibly steep and narrow driveway. We revved up that muddy country road many times that week. Sometimes we had to bail, slowly roll backwards down the hill, and try again. But we always made it up, however frantically.
This is the third time I've written the liner notes for a Nagasaki Swim record, and the first time Jasper has refused to tell me anything about it. 'Good luck', he said. 'I guess we'll find out soon enough if this is a bad idea.' Luckily, The View From Up There inspires confidence.
In hindsight, Everything Grows (2023) really was the outgrowth of The Mirror (2021)'s substratum. The clear-eyed debut, which then elicited questions and trepidations such as: 'What really is this music thing I'm doing? And where the hell do I go from here?' The follow-up record provided much-needed answers, with Jasper learning that most of the magic had come from the aimlessness, the fidgeting, the fucking around and finding out.
It has made The View From Up There an exercise in abandon. For several months, Jasper had even been teasing 'ROCKIN' IN THE FREE WORLD' as the next album title. And though it isn't quite that grunge and hawkish (and perhaps the world isn't quite that free), this is undeniably a Rock Album. Just listen to the scorching, Springsteen-esque saxophone sounds Mart Boumans (Personal Trainer) summons on 'Tokyo, 7AM' and 'Picture'; or the stampede with which the drums arrive on 'The Next Moment'; or the rare guitar solo that closes out the record, courtesy of lapsteelist and next-gen Nels Cline Jelle Crooijmans.
Going in, the band was new – with Juliette van Balen (Sarah Julia) and Paul Dijkman (Coaster) joining the regular line-up, alongside cornerstone Kat Kalkman (Library Card) – and the songs were not quite as road-tested as before, but somehow Jasper, alongside producer Mark Watter (Alex G, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick), managed to make them feel loose and lived-in. It's studio wizardry wherein, still, the stage lights beckon.
Newfound touchstones emerge (MJ Lenderman, The War on Drugs, The Band) alongside the old (LVL UP, Bonny Doon, Cloud Nothings), but listening to 'The Next Moment' speed up, then simmer down, and then accelerate again, Nagasaki Swim reveals itself, surely, as a band with ever-increasing zeal, tenacity, and a sound of its own. This is Jasper and friends, powering on.
Though much less afraid to rock and roll and try his hand at bold new things (like the hefty autotune on 'Picture'), Jasper still isn't one to just say "fuck it". As he points out on 'The Golden Car': he's not like that. Throughout the record, he stares wistfully at the horizon, at the birds in the sky, at empty parking lots and buildings under construction, and he cares. The nocturnal scenes of one Robby Müller might soothe him, the changing cityscape of his hometown Rotterdam might worry him, airport security might freak him out temporarily, but on The View From Up There Jasper takes on the world in stride. We'll see what's up ahead.
Sure, it will always be a little scary not knowing where your day, your life, a song or the street you're driving on is going. But isn't there also profound beauty in uncertainty? Especially if you have friends to share it with. And the vista from that Belgian hillside turned out to be well-worth the rocky road.
- Ruben van Dijk
credits
released March 7, 2025
Jasper Boogaard: songs, words, vocals, guitars, co-production, additional keys
Kat Kalkman: organ, piano, keys
Juliette van Balen: bass, backing vocals
Paul Dijkman: drums, percussion
Mark Watter: production, engineering, mixing, additional backing vocals
Jelle Crooijmans: lapsteel, guitar solo
Mart Boumans: saxophone
Jente Lammerts: additional backing vocals
Ties Lammerts: assistant engineer, additional percussion
Fokke de Wit: assistant engineer
Recorded at Schenk Studio & Studio Noordsingel
Field recordings from Vlieland, Lake Biwa
Mixed at Headroom Studios by Mark Watter
Mastered by Christian Bethge
Artwork by Bradley Kerl
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