We don't really review EPs, but then we don't usually happen upon abrasive and endearing concept EPs about über-motivated mountaineering pandas going by the name of Yolanda. Yolanda The Panda is the second extended-play from East London oddball popstrels Free Swim and is as riveting a listen as its hypothesis is absolutely barking. From the snappy vortex of hysteria that is I Want to be a Mountaineer! to the subdued melancholia of denouement Scoring Bamboo Shoots in which the woody grass is paralleled with pills, Yolanda seemingly stupefied, comatosed, Free Swim create a deceptively sprawling, cinematic and expansive EP given its all-too-succinct running time of fourteen minutes. Clocking, far from clogging up the rest of the tracklisting are the sprightly, if somewhat ramshackle Harmlessly English, a chirpy swoon through buoyant, quintessentially British indie pop and Swooping Swoopily like a Swooping Swooper (streaming below). Swooping Swoopily like a Swooping Swooper is effectively the Parklife of the 21st Century by way of I, Ludicrous, Yolanda's theme tune of sorts (an eruptive chorus divulging: "Yolanda, nothing rhymed with you except Rwanda. On another day we'd name you Amanda but Yolanda sounds more Eastern European, which is nice") as your final marbles of sanity spew forth from your ears in unadulterated ecstasy. Swooping Swoopily like a Swooping Swooper by Free Swim
To download the EP in its entirety, the Free Swim Bandcamp is your best bet.
