Swans: Classic or Dud?

won't you come and wash away the rain

here's a recording of the whole set apparently? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNIIw455Wgw&spfreload=10

wow thanks

The 3CD deluxe reissue of Filth, which also includes the debut 12" EP, Body to Body, Job to Job and a bunch of bonus live tracks, all newly remastered, is available for preorder now (street date is 5/26).

oh wow! never thought that would happen, tbh

Thanks! Don't they send out mails about this kind of thing anymore?

THis new set comes with the audio for the London debut which was when i first saw them. Might just get another copy of this since it also has the first e.p. which I was just thinking I'd never heard last night. Have heard the soundbites up at the suite now.
I think the stripey back cover of the 3cd set is the front cover of that e.p. isn't it?

yes

Apparently (and I ordered before I knew this) if you pre-order it from the YG site, Gira signs it.

He seems to do that with most of the stuff you get from the YG site doesn't he? I've certainly had a number of things bought from there come with his autograph.
Could just be recent releases but certainly seems to be something he does regularly

a la his mate jim foetus, a similar online groove.

(have heard that jim does the whole foetus online thing himself these days, and it would not surprise me if michael followed the same path)

Just got it today - I can't say I hear a whole lot of difference between this version of Filth/Body To Body and the ones that were released on YG in 2000, which sounded more than adequate already. The Swans EP sounds way better than any version I'd heard before + the CBGB's and London recordings sound rather mediocre to say the least :-/

https://www.facebook.com/SwansOfficial/photos/a.487755361977.266239.13879391977/10153948860591978/?type=1 : remaster/reissue of White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity in the works
+
https://www.facebook.com/SwansOfficial/photos/a.487755361977.266239.13879391977/10153779357881978/?type=1 : new album to be recorded starting in September

Now that I'm mentioning WLFTMOI: check out the longer version of Why Are We Alive on Various Failures, it's way better than the original

... even though the first 3'50" are identical :-)

great news, love that album

https://www.facebook.com/SwansOfficial/photos/a.487755361977.266239.13879391977/10154034056451978/

Imminent end of Swans again.

I spoke to Norman about a year ago and I strongly inferred he felt like he was getting too old to still be doing it. You then get to the "is it the Swans with just Gira" argument I guess.

good decision, not Swans w/o Westberg imo

Gira said in a 2011 interview that "[Swans] is what I’m going to be doing for the next five years", so I think he's had this thing mapped out for a good long while.

haha, love the description of the next studio album as an "insatiable beast". can't wait!

ha i wasn't aware there was a swans facebook page does anyone else find it really super weird and incongruous to see michael gira posting something on facebook?

not trying to be contrary, but don't think it's weird at all that gira is on facebook - he's always gone in for fan communication, using all available channels to reach out/promote - never really saw him as a luddite/crank hiding in his cave

^^^ people assume he's distant because his art is aggro but he wrote all the one-sheets for every act on Young God Records and championed the albums ceaselessly

he's not mr. warmth but he's not Artist Removed From the Process either

oh yea it's not the fan communication that struck me, my main impression tbh from the young god website was "wow gira is super chatty"

more just that it was facebook

Yeah, disagree that Gira is not Mr Warmth, he's bizarrely close to fans.

I remember at SSonic people being freaked out by him leaving out a handwritten note that said "I'll be around to sign stuff later, or just to hang out so please don't leave and stay back to say Hi".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjMGZEq41-g&feature=youtu.be&t=3m48s

this interview is funny

i ordered some stuff from young god in like 07 or so and gira wrote me an email expressing his hope that all was well in new orleans. so he's a cool dude in my book.

When I saw them a couple of yrs ago I went with a friend who is a super fan and waited around afterward so she could take her picture with Gira and he was very pleasant and friendly.

Though I did mention if she had really wanted her picture taken with a dude in a big hat & smoking a cigar I could arranged that pretty easy and we wouldn't have to wait.

New handmade live CD now available to order:

http://younggodrecords.com/products/the-gate

I was just posting that, but waiting till my payment cleared before hitting submit.

that link is blocked here - is it one particular gig, or drawn from different shows (would love a good copy of their Roundhouse concert)

As to The Gate itself, it was recorded in Berlin at Berghain, night 2, for the most part, in 2014

really wish Gira could do the whole "buy the live CD of the gig, right after the gig" thing, seems perfect for them but it probably a big logistics nightmare

Berghain chosen for a specific reason:

this was the very night that our rendition of the song The Apostate morphed through improvisation into what has since become, through the usual trials, The Cloud of Unknowing

I'm not a big fan of that. Sometimes you miss the encores b/c they stop recording to start making the CDs (or USB sticks, which Neubauten use). Also, the recordings are obviously unmixed and unpackaged, and can sound pretty ropey. I prefer the way Dead Can Dance did it a few years ago, you bought a voucher at the gig and they sent you the properly mixed CD a few weeks later.

Would def be interested in a Mick's Picks live series

xp yeah you're probably right there, just daydreaming

also, LOL at "Mick's Picks"

From further down that page -

"... Though there’s still much to be said and new landscapes to explore on the new album and final (but yes, anticipated to be endless) tour, it’s time that we… what’s the word here… dissolve. By this I mean that each of us will continue on our own glorious diamond-strewn path - well, my 5 friends will, anyway – and I intend to keep the name and ongoing project of Swans active in a different form, drawing sporadically on the myriad list of musical cohorts I’m met along the way over the last 30 plus years (including I hope, at times, if they’ll consent, my 5 friends mentioned above) , but the creature, the beast, the monster, the liberating vortex of light and sound that is the 6 of us working in close quarters together over extended periods of time, will cease to exist. Most likely, Swans albums will not appear so fast and furious..."

wow, they sold out already

White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity and Love Of Life being reissued as a vinyl box (including a CD of rarities & outtakes) and a 3CD set. I've never heard either of these albums, and $23 for the 3CD version is very reasonable.

yesss, finally. White Light is particularly great, although a lot of folks may know most of these tracks from the Various Failures 2CD comp

also relevant:

The individual vinyl versions of these albums will also be available after the box set has sold out.

Yeah these are both great, although White Light is by some way superior. I think the songs for both were recorded at the same time and the best stuff got frontloaded on the earlier release. Not sure I would agree with the statement that White Light "is considered the starting point for the second section of Swans’ inimitable history", The Burning World seems to fit that particular bill more closely, although I guess Gira is still not keen on it.

Anyway, I won't be shelling out for this as I still have my copy of the original box :-)

those albums were recorded separately.

well WL is still better

agreed.

According to Allmusic’s Ned Ragget, “Love of Life continues the astounding creative

Who is this one-T impostor?

http://younggodrecords.com/collections/frontpage/products/white-light-from-the-mouth-of-infinity-love-of-life-ltd-ed-vinyl-box-set-3cd-release

THe White Rabbit years reissued