Classic or Dud: Swans

WAIT! The drummer from Shearwater wasn't originally in the Swans, was he??

Okay, he wasn't

How can you guide someone up a rope?

Seriously seriously thinking I should go see them at Lee's.

Had you ever seen them before? You might as well -- at the same time I just can't get behind a Swans lineup (at this stage) without Jarboe.

I haven't actually seen them before, no! Big problem is I'm not really sure what to expect and not sure I'm in the mood for the old-school grinding but have a suspicion it won't be like the (Jarboe-including) stuff that is the material of theirs that I generally prefer...hm..

it's gonna mostly sound like the live stuff from the last two tours on Swans Are Dead

I don't think so.

New album is one of their best. Seriously. Uncompromising, beautiful, unforgiving.

http://pitchfork.com/news/39600-new-swans-eden-prison/

and samples of all the tracks: http://younggodrecords.com/Releases/Detail.asp?C=2343

I don't think so.

I didn't just pluck the comparison out of the air, that is what Gira himself said it was going to sound like. And from the parts I've heard so far he's not far off.

some of us liked Swans better before Jarboe joined

and some of us even liked swans before and after jarboe joined!

read my sentence again edward

ok brb

lol

I love Jarboe-era Swans but there was something about Filth/Cop/Raping A Slave that was just the most scorched barren incredible wasteland of desolation.

I guess what I'm trying to say is they weren't better before jarboe joined, just a different kind of good? kinda feel like gira was hitting a wall with his sound and jarboe was the wrecking ball he needed to break through, plus public castration is my fave swans alb so

and then the sheer audacity of children of god, I mean a lotta ppl's heads hit the floor when "in my garden" came floating out of their stereos, I know mine did

yeah I adored that record & some of her instrumental/soundscapey stuff worked for me. at the same time though I don't know - Jarboe was practically a Traditional Goth in a lot of ways, which kind of diluted the potency of the Swans project, which was unique. I like "Yum Yab Killers" just fine but it's sort of, I don't know, second-tier for me.

I never saw Jarboe as a goth and I don't think she diluted the potency of Swans at all. That fragility and desolation she brought was a huge plus in my view. Plus if you'd seen her sing "I Crawled" on the '97 tour (captured on Swans Are Dead) I think you might change your mind. Those performances were frighteningly intense, it was as though she was singing from some scary place outside of mind and body.

I never saw Jarboe as a goth

O_O

man I am trying hard to remember what the last time I saw Swans was. Bogart's in Long Beach. 1992 or 93 maybe? Jarboe had about five hundred dollars worth of braids in her hair & gold-flecked makeup, etc. She opened the set with a pretty cool keyboard and voice deal. And a lot of the tape samples that're so scary on Soundtracks and stuff come through her. But I just never felt like her contribution was actually in the spirit of the project. It really did seem to have that "anything scary is cool" vibe instead of Gira's "this is essentially picking up the gauntlet thrown down by Artaud" vibe.

fragility and desolation

frighteningly intense

singing from some scary place outside of mind and body

HOW IS THIS NOT GOTH

I have beef with ilxor right now but nonetheless ilxor otm

HOW IS THIS NOT GOTH

Easy, goth is none of those things.

<3 ya aero

It really did seem to have that "anything scary is cool" vibe instead of Gira's "this is essentially picking up the gauntlet thrown down by Artaud" vibe.

Yeah but by 1988/9 Gira had renounced that vibe in any case, it was no longer part of the project to be "transgressive" or "confrontational". He embraced the Song.

So are we going to have a full on 'what is goth' war now?

What is the definition of goth?

well it's hard to say that Gira ever really embraced "the song" fully - his melodic sense is always subservient to his love of drone (i.e., in song after song, each line of each verse follows an identical melodic line to the line before it; there are some exceptions to this, but they're just that, exceptions). he basically grafted his power-drone sensibilities into song-like environments imo. this has remained true throughout the Angels of Light years, too. the songs have verses and choruses but never a bridge (or "pre-chorus," to use a term I wish could be scrubbed from the language). the chorus melody varies from the verse melody, but usually only in the sense that it seems to complete the melodic line that's been harped on to the point of either transcendence or irritation. so I don't view the changeover as actually so much a change in content as a lowering of the volume, which is fine. but beyond that there's just Gira's writing = interesting and sometimes excellent, Jarboe's writing = seldom either to me.

The term "pre-chorus" always reminds me of when sex ed classes would use the term "pre-cum." O_O

OTM, btw.

what kind of messed up sex ed classes did you go to

well imo the change was about much more than a lowering of the volume (and if we're talking decibels the last few Swans tours were just as loud as the earlier ones). the words changed massively for one thing. the early lyrics being essentially an obsessive Beckettian recombining of a limited number of lyrical tropes, which turned into the widescreen Biblical imagery of the later years. plus of course the instrumentation became a lot more varied too.

xxxp

otm, saw swans on the burning world tour and they were plenty loud

what I liked about the whole greed/holy money/children of god era was that it was goth, goth with balls tho

plus I find stuff like "blackmail" or "I'll swallow you" 100% transcendent and beating gira at his own game, it wasn't like a jarboe song came on and there was a sudden notable drop in quality

plus the material seemed all of of a piece, and integrating yourself into an aesthetic as airless and ascetic as gira's is no small feat so I always give props to miss jarboe for that

wow, got this today, reallly good. definitely a swans album. way more LOL/White Light than Soundtracks. which is fine by me. already want to play it again. i take back whatever i said about being anti-comeback/reunion here or elsewhere. now i definitely want to go to a show. nice and concise too. album is only 44 minutes. as much as i respected the whole AOL venture i can't say that i listened to the albums that much. its funny cuz its still just gira but swans majik energy is just so addictive to me in a way that AOL stuff never was.

OK now I REALLY want to get this

"So now we're off on a new journey, by reigniting swans I've unlocked the trunk where I'd trapped my demon brother. Now that he's out again I am wrestling with him and am determined this time to not only kill him, but all his friends and family as well."

http://thequietus.com/articles/04724-michael-gira-review-new-swans-album-my-father-will-guide-me-up-a-rope-to-the-sky

otm, saw swans on the burning world tour and they were plenty loud

man I saw em on burning world & then on great annihilator

former was polite volume, latter was pummeling

I'm not sure if this is selling me on going or not. I know if I don't, part of me is really gonna regret it. Either way really looking forward to the album...really should have gone for the "oh and send me the finished CD option when ordering that Gira demos fundraiser CD".

saw them on final tour and it was up there with the two or three loudest concerts i've ever seen. not even sure if i'm physically strong enough to handle them this time around.

^^^^^
I was kind of dancing around the issue, but yeah, this.

I saw them on the Children of God tour, and it was ridiculously, unpleasantly, horribly loud. It was so crushingly slow that you had time to anticipate and dread each snare hit, which was like a cannon going off in your face. It was an abslolute endurance test to get through it, and despite loving them I couldn't decide whether I was actually enjoying seeing them (in all truth, and with the benefit of 20+ years hindsight I can admit that, no, it wasn't fun.

Still glad I went though.

I'd see them again in a heartbeat, but I'd take ear-plugs.

haha i think i'll be taking those firing-range headphones roger miller wears to be honest.

It was the same on the '97 tour, Gira was constantly urging the soundman to wring every last ounce of volume out of whatever PA the venue served up.

ha way way upthread i said that the ICA/Public Castration gig was the loudest thing I'd ever experienced, but since then I've seem some noise dudes who were def louder - Hijokaidan, for one. but yeah, 'pummeling' is almost exactly the right adjective - that sense/feeling of the next whomp descending, like a hammer.

also saw em on the children of god tour and didn't think it was that loud, really, and i wouldn't be surprised if they're not that fierce this time out, either. gira seems to find the whole mega-volume question/prob a bit wearying these days, and i'm sure there'll be an element of expectation-confounding. WE SHALL SEE.

L34k3d.

i didn't leak it i swear. i played it a lot in public in my record store though. does that count?

forgot to play it yesterday for th*r*t*n when he was in. would have been fun to hear his opinion. i do want to see swans in boston but i'm too cheap and i hate going to boston and i am frightened of baby dee.

yes I went to your store and memorised it and then digitally reproduced it bit by bit and then leaked it.

on first listen I like this a lot, sounds like Swans without being retready.