Grant Swift is a New York City boy and the son of a preacher. Born in Manhattan, formed in the tri-state, and educated in the Bronx, and currently living in Brooklyn. By deploying his eclectic training in Baroque and Classical music and drawing deftly from the palette of the R&B, Psychedelic Rock, Jazz, and Pop he played growing up, Swift crafts music that allows audiences from all walks of life to come and enjoy the experience together.

Today Swift has released a new single from his upcoming album First Elephant titled “Sunshine.” “‘Sunshine’ is one of the “pop rock-ier” offerings from my solo debut full length album,” Swift says. “It’s a song about the cynicism of NYC’s culture of “hustle”, and about trying to manage my mental health at the same time. It’s a culture that demands authenticity and openness, while confining you to the most competitive and fast-paced market in the world.”

On his new record First Elephant, songwriter, composer, and vocalist Swift laces together threads of softly psychedelic folk-rock, hook-drenched power pop, and rollicking jangle boogie. Anchored by Swift’s deft and intentional arrangements, the songs are elevated by his fluttering, delicate, and truly striking voice. First Elephant is heady, woozy stuff; a perfumed sirens-song of melody, ready to lure the unsuspecting into its intoxicating embrace. 

Swift is one half of the acoustic duo Mac/Glidden, and with longtime songwriting partner Andy McCarthy, wrote, performed and engineered Mac/Glidden’s debut psychedelic-folk-rock album, Fall Into The Dark, (2017.) Their music video for the song “Mountains,” directed and animated by lauded sculptor / filmmaker Laurie Berenhaus, was an official selection at Sidewalk Film Festival, Indie Memphis Fest, and Leeds International Film Festival, among others.

That year they had the great honor of being invited by the late, prodigious, two-time Emmy Award winning Music Director for Saturday Night Live, Katreese Barnes to perform in her home for her live stream concert series, Welcome 2 My House. Barnes wrote orchestral arrangements of Mac/Glidden songs for the concert and provided a full backing band. Barnes said, “Mac/Glidden are keepers of the classic Music flame. It was a pleasure to work with them.”

While performing in March of 2020, Swift contracted SARS-CoV-2. He developed symptoms within 3 days of exposure and tested positive for COVID-19. During his 2.5-week in-home recovery, Swift wrote and recorded a 2-song album about his varying perspectives on the pandemic, Fear and Love in the Time of Corona, and produced a music video in New York City Parks for the second song, “Love (In the Time of Corona)”. He is currently writing and recording the soundtrack for an upcoming iOS and Android video game.

The title of Swift’s new record, First Elephant, refers to the parable of the Blind Men and An Elephant, in which a group of blind men, encountering an elephant for the first time, try to describe what it is like while each only observing distinct parts of the elephant. They experience and describe the elephant in vastly different ways. Each of them is partly right, but all of them are wrong. In some versions of the parable, they resort to violence against each other over their conflicting accounts. In many ways, we are all living this parable daily.

Photo Courtesy: eatthecakenyc