Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2009

© Surfrock International

Recently in town to promote new surfer doc The Drifter, Jon Swift took a circuitous route into the surf-rock community. After first earning a PhD in astrophysics, he then moved to Hawaii and began to focus on music, which on Pathway shows a penchant for austere, early-era Bob Dylan instrumentation and symbolic storytelling. A strong note of environmentalism permeates Swift’s lyrics, whether it’s the refrain “Everything is green and the boats are coming in” (from “Ode to O’Rourke”) or the warning “I need the river to get up and flow/Its tributaries no longer flow” (“We Are The Ones To Blame”). But the grainy-voiced Swift never hits you over the head with his message—ideas are rendered in poetic images that resonate after the music has stopped.