FOREST to Release Debut Album Ahead of Official Date
Advance access to the new recording comes ahead of its wider public release.
The band FOREST is preparing to release its debut album, with advance download and streaming access made available ahead of the record's wider release, according to information distributed by Big Hassle Media.
Swan Dive
Release Date: September 25, 2026
Tracklist
Vulture
Anchor
Prosthetic Stars
Breathe Out
Hot One
Juliet
Lay With Me
Divine Machine
Whatever You Want
Whore & Savior
Forest's debut album Swan Dive began, unexpectedly, in a hotel bathroom.
Two years ago, while trapped in a hotel room with her family, the Los Angeles-based songwriter found herself staring at a framed photograph of a swan hanging behind the toilet. The image lodged itself somewhere in her subconscious. Over time, it accumulated meaning: the doomed romance of Swan Lake, the lifelong pair bonds swans are known for, and an old internet myth that claims a swan will plummet to its death after losing its mate. Whether true or not, Forest was captivated by the idea. It felt dramatic, beautiful, lonely, and a little absurd—all qualities that would eventually define Swan Dive.
Though the album doesn't follow a single narrative, its songs orbit many of the same questions. What parts of ourselves belong to us, and what parts are shaped by the people who see us? How do we carry old relationships long after they've ended? What does it mean to leave home, reinvent yourself, and discover that your past has followed you anyway?
Those questions surface throughout the record in different forms. On 'Vulture,' one of the album's emotional centerpieces, Forest wrestles with dissociation and with being perceived, particularly as a woman. Elsewhere, 'Anchor' examines the feeling of becoming tangled in memories you can't escape. At the same time, 'Breathe Out' transforms the loneliness of arriving in Los Angeles into a quiet act of self-preservation. 'Prosthetic Stars' captures the aftermath of distraction and self-destruction, looking back on fleeting relationships and empty pursuits with clear eyes. Even the album's love songs carry an uneasy tension, balancing tenderness against distance, devotion against resentment.
The push and pull between opposing forces runs throughout the record. Forest explores the contradictions that have followed her into adulthood: softness and anger, intimacy and isolation, purity and sexuality, longing and independence. Nowhere is that more apparent than on 'Whore & Savior,' a song inspired by a misheard phrase during a tour stop in New York that became a meditation on first love, memory, and the impossible expectations placed on women. Looking back on adolescence, Forest recalls a period of life spent caught between extremes, trying to become everything at once.
The album was recorded almost entirely in producer Aaron Liebman's backyard garage studio, a deliberately DIY process that mirrors Forest's artistic instincts. In contrast to her previous recordings, which were tracked live with minimal post-production, Swan Dive embraces experimentation. Electronic sounds weave through live instrumentation, processed textures blur into organic riffs, and carefully layered arrangements create a world that feels dreamlike without losing its humanity. Influences from artists like The Smashing Pumpkins, Deftones, Snake River Conspiracy, and Elliott Smith linger in the album's DNA, but Forest's goal was never imitation. Instead, she was searching for a language that felt uniquely her own.
That search is central to Swan Dive. More than a statement of intent, the album documents an artist in the process of becoming. Across its ten songs, Forest confronts loneliness, desire, grief, memory, and self-perception without pretending to have figured it all out. As its title suggests, Swan Dive is less concerned with safe landings than with the leap itself—the terrifying, exhilarating moment of surrender before you know where you'll end up.
