Swans -- The Seer

BTW, artwork:

http://cdn1.tinymixtapes.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/460_Width/news-12-05-swans.jpg

Just coming here to post that. Please God let it be 4REAL.

It's real, it was included with the PR mailouts.

Great artwork, I can't wait to hear this!

Time for walkies, Bastard

i love the all-star list of guest spots. it's like the swans-universe equivalent of some terrible charity benefit show where it ends up with eric clapton and neil young on stage, playing knockin' on heaven's door, just everyone is there, sheryl crow is there, everyone is sludging away. but i'm more optimistic in this context.

exciting! the nihilistically oppressed need a charity too!

Would an NYC date kill them? Damn.

i admire bill rieflin's ongoing quest to have one of the oddest drummer's resumes on the planet.

Would a Chicago show kill them?!

biggest deal in this new PR for me is the reappearance of Jarboe (!!!)

Whew.

This is one hell of a listen.

This is one hell of a listen.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, June 14, 2012 12:37 AM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

aaaaaah

I kept thinking "Christ how are they going to top thi--oh shit, they did."

Pardon the random wordspill of mine from FB but (slightly edited):

It's much more of a huge messy sprawl (I mean this positively), so as such its nearest counterpart would be _Soundtracks for the Blind_...._Father_ to me was the translation of then recent Angels of Light back into Swans-world if that makes sense, kind of a bridge into elegant extremity. This has plenty of said elegance and extremity but feels like it's exploding outward various directions, the shifts and changes can be even more abrupt or even more stretched out and slow burn. Three of the twelve tracks are twenty minutes long or longer (title track is half an hour). The final track (to which I listen right now) is one angry bastard of a thing.

Also they were not kidding at all about that music/instrument credit list. At ALL.

xpost dunno if i'll go that far yet. but maybe soon.

Yeah I want a second listen to make sure I have it all clearer -- it wasn't constant intensity (a good thing!) and its sprawl can mean meandering on their terms. But I like that, so there ya go. I honestly was surprised when what I thought was the ending was still about three quarters of an hour from it!

Why are the swans playing at one of the worst venues in town noooooooooo

I love Soundtracks, but I'll be honest and say that the concept of three three twenty minute+ songs sounds really exhausting.

Thankfully not in a row. (Title track/longest one is the middle of the album, the other two conclude it.)

I kinda stopped listening to Swans after I heard Public Castration, maybe it's time to pick em back up again?

maybe it's time to pick em back up again?

If you're expecting the mayhem of Filth/Cop/Greed to have returned in full glory, then no.
Swans have worked with a different kind of intensity from Children of God on, I'd say.
All pretty brilliant, by the way.

just prior the reunion shows i went back to the back cat and Children of God is THE one, imho - strikes a beautiful balance between early punishing swanscore and the later more songformy stuff. also, i was taught by one of the musicians on it.

"Keep practicing."

"But Mr. Gira it's been one chord for two hours."

"Time is money."

It was crazy to see that there were EIGHT musicians credited on Public Castration; sounds like Gira, a drummer, and a guy with possibly the meanest bass tone of all time...what the hell was everyone else doing??

I dig the brutality of the early stuff but I'm not sure how much more of that I can take. I think it would be funny if there was a camera on my face while I'm listening something like "Why Hide" or "Young God"; I'm guessing there'd be some pretty contorted frowns going on

Actually "Frown Squad" is a better name for this group than "Swans"

6 musicians on public castration - 2 drummers/bass/gtr/keyboard/vocals

you can watch the video version for further clarification

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqlX_9Q9ZrQ

^ my favorite long-play music video ever natch

i was there!

does it have the oiled body builder, who was the support act?

wow!

nope

so, this is not yet available for preorder, right?

new tour dates announced:

http://thequietus.com/articles/09190-swans-tour-uk-europe-us

looks like we're getting sir richard bishop as the support in glasgow, which is sweet, tho in the same venue last time round, poor old james blackshaw was drowned out by the audience (no such probs for swans lol)

man im so stoked to see swans, missed them last time

yeah don't miss 'em

unfortunately mr gira has booked swans in boston on my wedding anniversary, I don't think the missus will be down with earshattering postrock tent revival nonsense

http://facebook.com/profile.php?v=feed&id=13879391977

Only one old song, but they've never been a greatest hits kinda live band, so it doesn't really matter imo.

yeah but that old song is COWARD

i am so so so angry that i might have to pay $60 for these damn tickets.

Nothing new but while we wait:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm04wOP_gn4

http://www.pitchfork.com/news/47255-listen-to-a-10-minute-edit-of-swans-new-23-minute-song-the-apostate/

Facebook, July 13th:

set list for upcoming tour(s)... will be over 2 hrs music, i presume:
1. to be kind (unrecorded new song)
2. she loves us (unrecorded new song)
3. avatar (from the seer)
4. coward (from swans, '85/'86)
5. the seer (from the seer)
6. nathalie (unrecorded new song)
7. apostate (from the seer)
8. mother of the world (from the seer - encore song, if called for...)

i saw that, too.

the thing up at P4k is pretty rad. i am so excited for this record. my two favorite bands in the world having records come out with a month or so of each other makes this table very happy.

preorder: http://younggodrecords.com/658457004524-the-seer-cd

It's good. Listened to it today..

Website has crashed, cannot order.

yeah i got the same

preordered back with We Rose From Your etc... but couldn't help myself and listened to the leak. and HOLY SHIT that first listen is probably one of the most intense listening experiences ever.

CANT WAIT FOR MY CD!!!!!

Waiting for my live album pre-order. But it sounds ridiculously good.

I've been looking around trying to find out what song that might have been at his solo/Boredoms gig, it was sang with that thing he does with his voice on "Mother Of The World" where he shakes his voice up and down at the end of each sentence, I think it may have been a really different version of "Nations" but I hope not, it was so harrowing and I'm scared it might be a really rare track I'll never find, a unique live interpretation of a song, or worse: a song never recorded (but I dont think so, because a friend told me all the songs were from previous albums).

http://www.setlist.fm/setlists/michael-gira-73d6fa59.html?page=5

^ the setlist for glasgow wasn't posted, but if you look at some of the earlier dates on that tour (e.g. rome or amsterdam), his set seems to be pretty constant. does that help?

Where's the Irish dates Gira mate?

Sort it out

i was fortunate to see swans on the greed / holy money and children of god tours and never again expected to experience another musical event that shook me in such a fundamental way, but the gig last night had precisely that effect. crushing. wondering if i will experience the like of that ever again?

Thankyou very very much Albert Crampus(NickB) for your help. It was, as I had thought earlier, "Nations" but different from the first early version I found on youtube, the version I saw was more like this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLCreWbag0k

...does the studio album version sound like this, with the crazy shaking vocals? Because that really got under my skin.

i was fortunate to see swans on the greed / holy money and children of god tours and never again expected to experience another musical event that shook me in such a fundamental way, but the gig last night had precisely that effect. crushing. wondering if i will experience the like of that ever again?

― stirmonster, Saturday, 17 November 2012 18:07 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wanted to hear what you and krakow and other glasgow attendees thought of the gig on friday. i was surprised by how much the sound had changed since the last time they played the arches - much heavier, thicker, overwhelming - at times, particularly in the very bass-heavy first half, it kind've reminded me of attending a really deep dub blues night, totally physical and body-targeted - my clothes were rippling, i could feel a crash barrier vibrating against my leg, saw bits of debris fall from the ceiling. at one point it felt like someone was pressing on the inside of my mouth. it was a sound you could really get lost in.

of course, the sound wasn't by any means perfect, but fair play to the arches for giving it a good old try (i'm guessing the power of the sound system is one of the reasons why gira favours it as a touring venue.) his vocals especially disappeared under the heavy bass-drums, tho i notice he's singing less these days, anyway - at times he still sounds as powerful as ever, but his voice is much less the focus.

the muddy sound in the arches has ruined many a gig for me in the past, but i think in this case it actually enhanced the bludgeoning. i was compelled to wear ear plugs which is something i (probably foolishly) rarely do and that muddied the sound even more but didn't take way from the brute physical force. as you mention, there was all sorts of debris falling from the ceiling which i have only ever see happen in there before when mungos hi fi had their massive dub sound system set up. i'm still undecided as to whether i missed the sheer power of gira's vocals which were the dominant sonic factor last time i saw them but it was good to have a different experience rather than it being more of the same. as they appear to have come full circle sound wise, i'm wondering where they can / will go from here?

i was back in there a few hours later to play a gig and there was some local techno act playing. several people i spoke to were saying how loud and powerful they were but i could only chuckle as in comparison with swans it was akin to hearing mantovani played through a small transistor radio.

I want thor to protect me in his big hammering arms

This might be the album where Swans finally clicks for me. Helps that I'm on a huge Scott Walker tip at the moment and this is the only thing that comes close.

Weird music/real-life sync-up. I've just moved house and was cycling to my girlfriend's house the other night and tried to take a short cut. I ended up getting slightly lost and ended up in a slightly dodgy neighbourhood, it was raining, dark, lots of dark underpasses and alleyways etc while "93 Ave. B Blues" unravels into my ears in all its creepy howling glory. I wouldn't normally be frightened of cycling through this area, but suddenly everything took on this haunted, gothic tinge and I was very very scared indeed.

how is this album so long? it zips by in a minute

Man, this is really good. I haven't kept up with Swans stuff since Great Annihilator, but I really like the balance of musical heaviness and the dramatic, uh "gothic" elements that always seemed overpowering to me on the Various Failures period recordings.

The Apostate is just so fucking huge when you listen to intently all the way through without letting yourself get distracted.

listen to it

alright, alright, i'm doing it already...

haha, i was just correcting my typo. but the request still stands :)

Wow. Gira posted the setlist for the forthcoming dates and it seems like The Seer is pretty much done with already:

1. to be kind
2. mother of the word intro/ bleeds into screen shot (new song)
3. coward
4. she loves us (this one still evolving, but finding it's shape)
5. The Seer / bleeds into toussaint louverture song, which then bleeds into new song oxygen... this last bit, "the seer" etc, is 1 1/2 hours or so in length....
we might insert the new song nathalie after she loves us, but that would make set reach to close to 3 hrs per night, and not sure that's advisable, for all concerned!

Oxygen isn't exactly new, as it was on "I Am Not Insane", but it'll be awesome to hear as it was really surprising it wasn't deemed worthy of 'full band' before now. I wish I was about for the shows.

I am seeing them tonight in Bristol and I am MAD EXCITED.

And I'm mad jealous 'cos I'm in the middle of being on holiday, otherwise I'd be there too.

Wear earplugs, i'm begging you.

oh yes certainly. I was wearing earplugs and it felt like I wasn't. I posted brief thoughts on the other Swans thread and I'm going to repost them here cuz I'm an egotist or something:

I saw them for the first time last night, p incredible. The first hour was the kind of brutal unrelenting assault I was expecting and great for it, but I suppose for the second hour my body gave up all resistance and I was 100% ~inside~ the sound, I felt like I could've gone on for hours more. My special blessings go to the maniacs not wearing earplugs (Gira included, I suppose his ears are like precisely but violently cut diamonds by now) and the shirtless guy next to me going crazy with his buddies.

(Mouth to Mouth was a really fun evening overall, if tough on the legs and back. Grouper and Xiu Xiu both beautiful and intense in their v different ways, Mercury Rev more enjoyable than I thought they'd be, if a bit corny and reliant on the same few tricks over and over. Didn't really get Ben Frost, sounded like little more than cheesy if massive EBM to me, but crowd reaction and twitter search suggest that I'm missing something there.)

Rob M, are you me in disguise? I'm gutted to be missing Bristol because I'm on holiday as well.

Am I you in disguise, Aldo? Depends where you are holidaying...

Kenya last week, Zanzibar this.

Legoland last week, Torquay this week. We must be different then.

T minus five minutes.

Listening to a recording of the Leeds gig, so fearsome, feels like I'm hearing some explosives testing going on from a safe distance.

We left after an hour and three quarters so they were still playing - I felt saturated and it wasn't like they had a big single to encore with; I didn't recognise any of the set - and the noise coming from the back of the building was phenomenal. Unrecognisable as a product of music.

Love the fact that one of his band was wearing a suit and another was wearing a nice cardigan. And then the drummers are just tattooed daemons.

Although actually only one had tattoos, the other was longhair and beard. Thor?

yeah Thor is the longhair

I was gonna skip this because the venue is literally my least favourite in the whole world and I figured that ~atmosphere~ is such a big part of Swans shows that it would suck the life out of it. however I got offered a free ticket y'day afternoon and am v glad I took it cos they owned. there wasn't an encore but there was a lot of grateful and charming bowing at the end

Yeah, Bristol O2 Academy fucking sucks. So sad they moved from Arnolfini but I guess that means more payola for the band.

Got an excellent view at the Concorde - just busy enough without feelin crowded. Vicky rarely gets to see more than a glimpse of the band at shows cos she's little, but we could see fine. Sound quality was insane - felt like the band was playing inside me at points.

Gira's just sent out news of the latest live/demo fundraiser release, Not Here Not Now:

http://shop.younggodrecords.com/not-here-not-now-handmade-release

Meantime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZloh0qVOLk

definitely got a copy of this. really excited

yeah I should probably buy mine ASAP, I think the last version of this (We Rose From Our Bed or whatever it was called) sold out pretty quickly (and was awesome).

this is really really good

got mine today, gonna throw it into the car for the next week or so o listening

Envious. (Would've loved to get this but the money's not to hand.)

See, this is the sort of value-added stuff I wish more acts would do.

Got my shipping notice this morning.

https://www.facebook.com/larkin.grimm.1/posts/1284036894947002