SWATi- Small Gods
Bluhamock Records
review | by Ros Rice

Imagine that you have the world’s most amazing guitar. It’s primarily an acoustic guitar, one that you can feel vibrating against your chest as you play it, but it also sports an impressive array of delays, distortions, and post-modern tweezatronics - in short, a full band’s worth of sonic possibilities in one two-handed package.

On Small Gods, Swati and producer/guitarist Duke McVinnie (Shivaree) must have got a hold of one of those, because it sounds humongous. It’s always tempting for a singer-songwriter to just throw their songs at a producer, who then throws them to a hired rhythm section, and develops a “band sound” around the songs in hope of achieving a popular representation. With vocals that never rise into upper-range dramatics, Swati eschews this in favor of a womanwith- a-guitar rebel stance, employing this incredible instrument (via overdubs) to convey a distinctly personal tone, with occasional tasteful accompaniment.

“I got a prostitute in an Atlantic City bar” starts the second song, “Blackjack,” and you get the feeling Swati wants to shock you with sometimes brutal language to make you see her as a tough New York City traveler with a weary eye on the world, while her amazing guitar fills in sonic space. “Big Bang” drops in with insistent delayed triplets at full treble blast, flange fuzz galore, then down to a whisper. It’s nice to hear a new CD with real dynamics, not obscenely compressed. “2 O’clock In The Morning” feels like a nice late night diner cup o’ coffee, with a combo in the corner. From here, the CD moves nicely toward “Stay,” featuring a full band treatment with a tasty Jane Scarpantoni string arrangement. A strippeddown open tuning version of Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” works well with her low key delivery. Then: “I know what I’m doing now for the first time, in a long time....play nice, plan my escape, and get the f*** out of Dodge,” and you get the overall theme to this CD: raw and gritty wordplay (vocal range: think Suzanne Vega) over that fabulous guitar, beautifully recorded and mixed (at both Allaire and Smart Studios) by Brandon Mason (David Bowie, Secret Machines). Though lush and modern sounding on the CD, these songs on Small Gods are built to be performed solo. September finds Swati touring with Jesse Harris in the South and Midwest.