Swans: Classic or Dud?

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

Which Iguess you already nknew, I thought i was reviving a dead thread.
Do wish they'd redo Anonymous Bodies in An Empty Room since i think I prefer that last days of the Children of God band gone folk rock sound.
& Omniscience is interesting too. I heard that GIra meticulously pieced that together from edits of live tracks piece by piece jigsaw like instead of it being an audio verité set like some earlier things might have been. But I think it came across pretty powerfully though I haven't listened to it for ages. Not sure if I still have it or at least a working copy, think mine came from the Dublin Tower water damaged sale so may have been prey to that.

despite loving C.O.G and seeing that tour (oooh my ears !), this is the reissue i have been waiting years for.

Westberg left between Burning World and Whiter Light though he's on live materail from '88 and '89. I think he went off and became a heroin Sheik.
Maybe it's taht that defines the difference between stages.
Could also be that Gira disowned Burning World for years, though he did put out Forever Burned some years ago based on it.

wasn't it cos of the laswell production that gira hates the burning world album ?

Well, my pre-order's in.

I got White Light after Various Failures, paid an absurd amount for it but it seemed worth it at the time, not because of the tracks that weren't on Various Failures but because the track sequence brought new life to the songs.
Never bothered to get Love Of Life or anything else from the period, just hoping that Various Failures really was all the really good stuff.

ordered this alongside the new dave gahan/soulsavers release (in order to qualify for the free delivery from amazon of course).

i feel very happy with my selection of dark and miserable grooves.

£13 for the swans 3cd set : cannot complain re that at all.

even if the extras are crap i would have paid a lot more for the main album a few years ago on cd ..

I can assure you that some of those extras are definitely not crap ("Dream Dream" is one of my favorites from this period)

I wish they'd just reissue "Ten Songs From Another World" exactly as it was. Sequencing is really great on that, especially the beginning.

agreed! other than a vinyl version of "Great Annihilator" and a reissue of Omniscience, I think that's the only other loose end

And The Burning World, no?

reissued on vinyl recently, dunno abt CD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Burned 2003 OOP

Has anybody found out if Omniscience is duplicated in tracks on the bonus disc here? Or if the versions are different? Seem to be some of the same titles at least.

Some, but far from all.

I had forgotten that The Burning World was reissued by Water in 2012 and remains in print.

Weird question that I never thought of before, but is Jarboe's age per Wikipedia accurate (January 30, 1970)? I never thought of her as particularly young looking, but that would make her like 14 or 15 when she gets involved with Swans. Wondering if that's possible. Gira born in 1954. Kind of hoping that Wiki has her birthdate wrong.

Still waiting for my copy of the White Light/Love set to arrive, but I also just ordered the reissue of The Burning World from Amazon.

No way is that date of birth accurate.

I'd say it would be about 10 years out. Might be 1960. She was certainly older than me in the mid 80s when i met the band a few times.
Probably still is in fact.

http://www.swans.pair.com/PRESS/int_com.html :

Oh, thats not samples, thats tapes which Jarboe recorded as a little girl, about 12 years old.

The "Her" tape mentions the Grateful Dead playing Piedmont Park "this afternoon" = July 7, 1969.

so... she's from 1957.

/investigative journalism

but she has chosen not to reveal that officially so um, if you get a cease & desist, it wasn't me :-)

ok, it's slightly weird not to have the tracklist anywhere in the 3CD box/packaging & to have to go look it up online but anyway (the booklet only contains the lyrics and "#5, #9, #13 etc originally appeared on World of Skin" etc, not what those tracks might be)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Light_from_the_Mouth_of_Infinity -> "2015 remaster version" for the differences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_of_Life_%28album%29 -> "background" and "2015 bonus tracks" for CD 2 & 3 details

my head hurts now

can someone tell me the current status of swans song "black hole man"? i have a live recording that's like 19 min long and i was wondering if there was a not-live version of it.

No, the only officially released version at the moment is on The Gate, live, as the second part of "Bring The Sun" (28:16).
(Maybe they'll record a studio version for the 2016 album, I don't know)

hope so!

Larkin Grimm has accused Gira of rape.

https://t.co/iO2IF5x1ZX

Dud

ugh

Don't know if legit:

http://i65.tinypic.com/2jcvbo.png

(Me = not me, obv, just found this being linked to somewhere else)

Larkin has commented further to Pitchfork:

http://pitchfork.com/news/63780-swans-michael-gira-accused-of-rape-by-former-collaborator-larkin-grimm/

I am not in this for vengeance. I am not angry. I do not want Michael Gira to have his life destroyed. If one in four or five women has been raped, we have to acknowledge the possibility that one in five men might be rapists. What are we going to do with them all? Send them to jail for 10 years and cut off their dicks? NO. It is the whole culture that has to change. We have created this epidemic of harassment and disrespect and violence together. We have to end it together.

I believe I will stay off the internet for a few days until this whole thing blows over

Gira has responded.

https://www.facebook.com/mgira/posts/10201368018239159

well that got ugly fast

Made mistake of reading comments to his post.

And for fucks sake, has anyone listened to his songs speaking out against rape??!??
Like · 4 · 13 mins
Dennis Mandarin
Dennis Mandarin EXAAAACTLY
Like · 1 · 13 mins
Dennis Mandarin
Dennis Mandarin Anyone who believes this probably doesn't listen to swans.

^^^^ "but his best friend is black!"

yeah that one stood out

fuck what a depressing story

Gira's wife reacts as well

https://www.facebook.com/coveredwithstars/posts/10206691239732330