Swapmeet’s Big, Beautiful Indie Noise

S wapmeet knew they had something special as soon as they started playing together. It was 2020, and the four then-teenage musicians were all finishing high school in Adelaide, Australia , when they met. The chemistry at their early jams was “fucking mind-blowing,” says Venus O’Broin. “It was just so natural and easy,” says her bandmate Jack Medlyn. “You had an idea, and everyone else would jump on whatever instrument and fill it in.” “Shit was crazy,” O’Broin adds. That’s a sentiment shared by many who have heard Swapmeet since then. Their 2024 EP Oxalis , which they recorded and mixed entirely on their own, is full of subtle textures that draw you in from the first listen. Delicate slowcore melodies blossom into full-on shoegaze freakouts, each song following its own mysteriously compelling logic. At this year’s SXSW festival , they were equally excellent onstage, playing more than a dozen sets with electric, unpredictable energy that got people talking all over Austin. A week after those shows, which were their first ever in the U.S., Swapmeet stop by Rolling Stone ’s New York office before heading home to Adelaide. The four bandmates — singer-guitarists O’Broin, Medlyn, and Maxwell Elphick, and bass player Josh Doherty, all aged 23 — relax on couches and chairs, laughing at inside jokes and marveling at the view of Manhattan outside the window like any other friend group in a new country. (Elphick and Medlyn also switch off as the band’s drummers.) “I couldn’t imagine making music with another group ever,” O’Broin says. “We’re just trying to see what the four of us can do together with a whole lot of delusional confidence.” First up: their full-length debut, Mount Zero , out July 17 on the L.A.-based Winspear label. The album opens with “I Know!,” the catchiest song Swapmeet have ever made, with a needling guitar riff and a tightly wound, restless melody. The rest of the LP moves with the same self-assurance, as O’Broin, Medlyn, and Elphick trade off lead vocals...