This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
In an ideal world, there would be no boundaries between musicians: Miles Davis, say, might have teamed with Tortoise and Roni Size, with Brian Eno and Lee (Scratch) Perry co-producing.
Of course, that could never happen — but HiM’s Sworn Eyes is what it might sound like if it did. Led by drummer and bassist Doug Scharin of Chicago post-rockers June Of 44, Sworn Eyes is a genre-spanning fusion of experimentalism and tradition: Jazzy horns, edgy violins and African hand percussion share space with skittering drum ’n’ bass loops, robot beatboxes and dubby production. Spacious, lush and joyfully unclassifiable, HiM are something the post-rockers and the jazz crowd can agree on. Well, there’s one boundary removed.
