Swans Is There Really A Mind?

 

New Swans album coming this year, so as always Gira recorded acoustic demo versions of the songs to be recorded. Some of them sound very sinister, others sound very close to leaving meaning. Personally, I hope this album will be heavier and more unholy than leaving meaning. Going to see them live this summer!!

2022 cd on Young God.

Download

Etant Donnes With Michael Gira ‎– Offenbarung Und Untergang By Georg Trakl

1999 cd on Les Disques Du Soleil Et De L'Acier.

Download

Swans - leaving meaning.

2019 has been a year of disappointments with regard to albums I've been expecting: Earth's successor to Primitive & Deadly was completely unimaginative, Martyrdod's Hexhammaren was a shit turn to metal, a predictable development since they signed to Century Media, and of course Mayhem's Daemon proves once more why we should all spill blood to Satan so that Blasphemer returns. So, all these months I've been thinking that I will be disappointed by the return of Swans, or to be more precise of Gira and friends. The guest list is extremely impressive and promises an amazing listening experience: The Necks, von Hausswolff sisters, all members of the 2010-2016 run, as well as Ben Frost (who I don't really like but anyway). Plus I really liked the demos of What Is This. However, the album is quite calm if we compare it to the sonic onslaught of the previous years, and reminds more of Angels Of Light with a more psychedelic feeling. OK, objectively the songs are amazing, but I don't feel the vibes of the previous ones, of if I should be more precise it reminds me kinda strongly of To Be Kind, the most boring of the four albums, and the one with the weakest production, an element the new album shares, especially in the more rocking and drum-filled tracks. But then, with the things that are happening in my life the time to devote completely to demanding albums is very limited so perhaps this is the problem. 2019 2 X cd on Mute/Young God Records.

Download

Swans - Filth/Body To Body/EP #1/Live Recordings 3-cd reissue

Of course theres nothing to be said about Swans' first monstrous album of cacophonic oppressive filth. I'm just posting this because I recently finished the Sacrifice And Transcendence: The Oral History book with interviews of various people close to Michael Gira and Swans compiled by Nick Soulsby. It's a fun book documenting Gira's oppressive personality and regimental discipline imposed on the band, plus the many crazy reactions to the band's loudness. Jarboe comes off as an extremely likeable person by most interviewees, Bill Laswell is mostly berated for the production he imposed on The Burning World album. What I found lacking was discussion on the reunion line-up and experience of Swans which was kinda short and didn't care to make any mention of the decision to disband it and Gira's enigmatic plans about how Swans will continue; plus, since the book is as much a Swans biography as an account of Gira's life and his life post-Swans (with some really negative comments by his Angels of Light collaborators), I would definitely have liked it had the book delved into the rape allegations made by Larkin Grimm, given that she hasn't pressed charges against him and that Gira has made a too vague response as far as I'm concerned. I hope that the truth will come out one day; whether Gira has done it or not, there must be some form of financial help for women who have been raped so that they can legally go forward, and so that Larkin Grimm can do what she deems best to prove if Gira is scum or not.

So, the three-cd reissue of Filth includes the album remastered plus a live recording from 1982-3 on the first cd, the amazing Body To Body Job To Job live cd comprising of recordings from 1982-85 in all their brutality - damn that LOUD version of 'Raping a Slave' (and includes the only live recording I've heard of Sue Hanel with Swans), and the third cd includes the first EP, and other early live recordings. Enjoy. 2015 3-cd set on Young God Records/Mute.

CD1: Filth
CD2: Body To Body
CD3: EP/Live Recordings

Norman Westberg - 13 cd

Does Norman Westberg need any introductions? He is probably in my opinion the most groundbreaking guitar player of the last 35 years, along with maybe very few others such as Dylan Carlson and King Buzzo. He has always been such an integral part of the sound of Swans, from the nihlistic emptiness and oppression that his noise and riffs evoked in the early days, to the annihilating sound that they had been doing up till a few months ago before the disbandment of the last line-up. In the four times I watched Swans live since the reignition in 2010, I always had my eyes on Norman to see what he was doing, since he always seemed to be as the one who was the less audible, but every time it became apparent that his quiet gum-chewing persona was the one delivering the droning underbelly beneath the noise. I am very lucky to have seem them repeatedly live and I hope that whatever comes next in the Swans thing, he will still be part of it.

This cd was initially a very limited release in 2014, but fortunately Lawrence English and Room40 have made this once available. It's an amazing 31 minutes of guitar, e-bow and bowed bass-based drone/ambient masterpiece with an incredible sense of longing, mourning, solitariness, and of dark, desert environments. I can't recommend this highly enough, but it must be already understood that Norman is guaranteed success. 2015 cd on Room40.

Download