Latest Release
- JUN 23, 2023
- 11 Songs
- To Be Kind · 2014
- To Be Kind · 2014
- The Seer · 2012
- Soundtracks For the Blind · 1996
- To Be Kind · 2014
- White Light from the Mouth of Infinity · 1991
- To Be Kind · 2014
- To Be Kind · 2014
- Filth (Deluxe Edition) · 1983
- Soundtracks For the Blind · 1996
Essential Albums
- At two hours in length, To Be Kind shows Michael Gira’s Swans are as serious, demanding and extreme in 2014 as they were back in the early ‘80s when their music was either greatly praised or harshly condemned. There is little middle ground for this group and anyone spooked by the 12-1/2 minute Howlin’ Wolf Tribute “Just A Little Boy” should probably not go forward. However, for fans of slow, gothic, death-rattle Swans, the track is just one sign that the band’s sessions with John Congleton at Sonic Ranch, outside El Paso, Texas were an overwhelming success. Much of the material was developed live during the tours of 2012-13 and explains why there is so much to sift through. Special guests such as Little Annie, who duets with Gira on “Some Things We Do,” Cold Specks, whose multi-tracked vocals guide “Bring the Sun” and honorary Swan Bill Rieflin filled out the sessions that were recorded with a solid sextet in place. “A Little God In My Hands” adds a touch of Krautrock to its elliptical groove. The 34-minute “Bring the Sun/ Tousaaint L’Ouverture” is a complex epic worthy of their reputation.
- Noise-rock behemoths Swans’ final record of the 20th century—they would go dark for the next 14 years—broke sharply with the rest of their ’90s output, in part because it’s essentially a Michael Gira solo project. Far from its pummeling predecessors, this ambitious double album is a fever dream of electronic sketches interwoven with found sounds and Dictaphone remnants. Bits of full-band jams and cacophonous live scraps peek through the fog, only to be swallowed up by the ambient swirl. Swans’ most experimental project, it’s a heady, enveloping listen, while the odd rave-up—like “Blood Section,” jet-engine loud—reminds us that they’re among the world’s heaviest.
Artist Playlists
- Visionary, immersive, and unrelenting sounds from this New York band.
- No wave lifers raised an unholy ruckus echoed by all manner of noise and metal.
Compilations
About Swans
The evolution of Swans from scuzzy noise rockers to transcendent experimentalists is unlike that of any other band in the history of the American underground. When New York multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira started Swans in 1981, they brandished cacophony like a weapon. Their performances became notorious for assaultive volumes and onstage violence. Meanwhile, albums like 1983’s Filth and 1984’s Cop shaped noise rock and avant-metal thanks to their marriage of no-wave dissonance and industrial pummel with transgressive lyrics. The addition of singer and keyboardist Jarboe Devereaux as a full-time member in 1986 signaled their pivot toward more musical, though no less uncompromising, sounds. Goth, neo-folk, blues, and even ambient music informed their increasingly expansive recordings before their first dissolution in 1997. Gira would focus on the folky Angels of Light and his Young God label before putting together a new configuration of Swans from 2010 to 2017. This version nearly achieved mainstream success thanks to records like The Seer that pour the brutal catharsis of ’80s Swans into darkly majestic compositions. But in 2019 the always restless Gira unveiled yet another new lineup and sound on the art-rock-informed Leaving Meaning.
- ORIGIN
- New York, NY, United States
- FORMED
- 1982
- GENRE
- Alternative