Swans
BIO
After gaining a reputation as a prime purveyor of some of the most brutal and hypnotic eardrum shredding noise ever created by human beings- carrying the musical torch of playing so loudly live that people would vomit, an accolade which has subsequently been passed to My Bloody Valentine- the New York band Swans have been reformed by singer and founding member Michael Gira after almost 13 years of inactivity. With the new Swans lineup- Gira still occupying the position of main man, alongside original Swans guitarist Norman Westberg and a number who played in previous incarnations of Swans' ever revolving group of musicians- hitting the UK in October for their first tour in literally eons in support of their latest album My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky, at long last we are able to warrant running an 'Artist of the Week' piece on these cult post-punk legends.
The band began in 1982 amidst the then dwindling, but immensely influential New York “No Wave” movement. Although the heyday of No Wave was short lived, many of the groups who were major players in the scene- such as Mars and DNA- which became renowned for the creation of music that was extremely abrasive, commonly deemed obnoxious, but always of an intensity bordering on a religious experience live, left an indelible mark on Gira and his men. Swans took the elements of dissonance and the wall of sound sonic attack employed live by the aforementioned groups (whose music was brought to a wider audience when Brian Eno documented a selection of their songs on the now very rare LP, 'No New York'), slowed the pace down to the lethargic plod of a dying brontosaurus, and cranked the volume 'to 11'. Upon the release of their debut, Filth, in 1983, it became evident that Swans had transformed the No Wave sound into a much darker, more metal influenced beast. Early recordings were reviewed by contemporaries critics as “aggressive beyond belief”.
A multitude of albums with varying line-ups (which from 1986 included the gothic princess turned singer/keyboardist Jarboe as a core member alongside Gira) continued their pulsating, unfathomably dark sound. However, Gira soon admitted that he had become disillusioned with the music that people expected Swans to produce, and with 1987's Children Of God the band embarked on a stylistic shift that gave birth to more melodic material, toning down the ear-splitting noise and introducing more acoustic instrumentation.
Evidently dissatisfied after producing half a dozen more albums (including the more accessible Soundtracks For The Blind in 1996), Gira decided to disband the group in 1997. He formed another project, Angels of Light, and began managing his own record label, Young God Records, to which he signed experimental folksters Akron/Family. The new album, which is released at the end of September, picks up from the more melodic material that characterised Swans' later output, yet it still finds time to exude as much gravity and skull-crushing brutality as ever. Swans are back. They have not lost one ounce of their awesomeness, and they will almost certainly kill you.
www.myspace.com/swansaredead (but they aren't really...how confusing)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Swans/13879391977
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swans_%28band%29
VIDEOS
No Words/No Thoughts. The first track off 'My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky'
Documentary footage from 1997
words and thought by Tim Robins