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Dec 11, 2023 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Rachel Bennett

Next year, long-running Seattle-based indie outfit Kuinka are set to return with their fourth full-length album. Fans last heard from the band in 2021 with their latest record, Shiny Little Corners, which found them weaving together influences from folk, synth pop, and guitar-heavy indie rock. They then followed that album with a pair of new singles this year, “Dream House” and “The Optimist.” Today, they’re back with another new track, “Nightswim,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Nightswim” begins as a dreamy duet, carried along first by floating organ tones and then by a rushing tide of guitars. The song dances easily between moods and vocalists, taking on a stormy and tumultuous haze before shedding it for moments of celestial vocal beauty. However, as the track approaches its final leg the band locks into a rollicking new groove, ending on galloping rhythms and a buoyant guitar solo. The band’s ability to move between tones and tempos gives the track a special dynamism, rendering their dreamy lyrical meditations in vibrant color.

The band says of the track, “‘Nightswim’ is the latest in a series of singles written around the concept of dreams: the literal state of exploring consciousness through the strange and ephemeral landscape of sleep, and the equally strange and ephemeral landscape of reaching for the things we hope will bring safety, community and contentment. The song, built from Pixies-esque guitar tones,...organ, and duetted vocals, dances around the concept of memory: the colors and shapes that pull apart and come back together different each time we try to conjure an event of the past. The carnival ride of what is and what has been, kaleidoscoping in on itself just above our reach. The tide off the empty boardwalk receding further out each time we get close enough to swim.”

Check out the song early below. Kuinka’s newest LP is due out next year.