PRESS
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Vandala Magazine - Interview
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https://vandalamagazine.com/2016/09/02/interview-mortality-and-god-with-michael-gira-of-swans/ INTERVIEW: MORTALITY AND GOD WITH MICHAEL GIRA OF SWANS Interview by Matt BaconFrom September 2016 Vandala Magazine READ MORE ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS & MORE FREE How do you feel about doing press days? Michael: It’s the low point of my day but there is no offense intended, it’s not my favorite thing to do to talk about myself or the music. I realize it’s necessary. Have you ever liked to talk about yourself? Michael: No. I kind of loathe people who talk about themselves and when you are in the music business you meet a lot of people like that. So what do you like to talk about? Michael: Usually it has to do with the proximity of death and the possibility of god. I was going to ask you about that – I noticed you said you’re not a deist… Michael: I think that’s a misuse of the word. I think deism was a popular theological argument in the 18th century. What I meant by that is I don’t subscribe to a particular religious belief but I have a suspicion that some creative force of love or intention is buried behind our consciousness. What makes you think that? Michael: Observation and meditation and being completely dumbfounded by......
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The Seventh Hex - Interview
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https://theseventhhex.com/post/160224743285/swans-interview Following the unprecedented critical and commercial success of Swans’ double-album masterworks ‘The Seer’ and ‘To Be Kind’, Michael Gira announced that the existing iteration of the band would only produce one more album and tour. ‘The Glowing Man’, as with its predecessors, is an expansive two-hour epic containing lengthy compositions that the band developed during their momentous tours. Throughout the latest release, Gira is less a songwriter than a summoner, channelling unspeakable amounts of energy into ritualistic spectacles. Many of the songs start out with tension-building drones, often utilising lots of percussion before ebbing and flowing with intense bursts, and eventually reaching ecstatic, trance-inducing states. There’s no way this type of boundless energy can simply be retired or silenced, though, so the album serves as another exciting portal into the unknown… The Seventh Hex talks to the legendary Michael Gira about being self-critical, sequencing and Buddhism… TSH: Since the inception of Swans to now, how rewarding is it for you to consistently and continually develop little worlds and atmospheres with your compositions and have listeners connect on a personal level? Michael: Without sounding too sentimental, that’s the greatest reward. When I talk to audience members after the show, hearing......
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Under the Radar Mag leaving meaning. Review
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http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/swans_leaving_meaning Swans leaving meaning Young God Nov 26, 2019 WEB EXCLUSIVE By Michael James Hall There's a moment on "The Nub," the 12-plus minute eighth track on leaving meaning, the 15th official studio album by Swans and the first with this line-up—The Necks are doing a stellar job backing one-true-Swan Michael Gira with their orchestral, atmospheric hesitations and runs—tension's building across the violin and keys and then slowly but suddenly the spectral horrors of the lyric "I'm naked, I'm drifting/In black milk that I'm drinking." The lyric lands and leads to other, even farther-out, space-sickening imagery. It drones and it drones and it drones and it's simultaneously transportive and terrifying. An obtuse image implants in the mind and feels unshakeable. Are we here, listening to the mighty Swans because we like to be tortured? About a half an hour ago things had started so differently with the orchestral rumble—ominous, portentous, malevolent but specked with dots and dashes of light—of opener "Hum" and swiftly delivered follow-up "Annaline," a gleaming musical waterfall backdrop provided for Gira's crackling baritone as he croaks "Right here and right now, the first night of our lives" on what sounds like his most optimistic song in...well...a while? This prepares us for a......
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Please Kill Me - Interview
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https://pleasekillme.com/swans-michael-gira/ SWANS DIVE AGAIN: MICHAEL GIRA, SACRIFICE AND TRANSCENDENCE AMANDA SHEPPARD NOVEMBER 27, 2019 The legendary musical outfit Swans—a revolving cast of inspired players centered around Michael Gira—has resurfaced with a new album, Leaving Meaning, and an upcoming 2020 tour. In his conversation with Amanda Sheppard, Gira covers much of the ground of his career, from art school in LA with Kim Gordon, living on nothing in ‘Alphabet City,’ sharing rehearsal space with Madonna and his eclectic influences like J.G. Ballard, Glenn Branca and Nico. Throughout the 1980s, Swans pummeled audiences into submission with dangerously high volume and steam-room conditions. Singer and band leader Michael Gira choreographed their sonic death and rebirth ritual and derided audience members who dared to disrupt the proceedings with dancing or headbanging. With its lumbering atonal bass, shrieking saw-blade guitar, thunderous percussions, proto-industrial loops, and Gira’s deep, demonic vocals, Swans took the experimental noise of No Wave bandleaders Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham to its most dangerous conclusion and influenced the evolution of sludge metal, industrial, and death metal along the way. Musically, Swans, too, have died and been reincarnated as a bludgeoning performance art ship on a voyage of the damned (Cop, Greed, Holy......
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Readers Digest - Michael Gira: Records that changed my life
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https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/music/michael-gira-records-that-changed-my-life Michael Gira: Records that changed my life Eva Mackevic We chat to the founder and frontman of the cult experimental rock band Swans, Michael Gira, about the records that shaped him Michael Gira: I listened to The Doors’ first album when I was 13. It came at a time in America when there was a great deal of turmoil, a turmoil which I wish still existed today, in that there was mass rioting and protests in the streets. It was the first kind of eruption of a counter-culture and The Doors to me, being from California, were emblematic of this ongoing apocalypse and, sonically, they just embodied that to me perfectly. The songs can be quite sensual and beautiful. I think that the song “Crystal Ship” is just absolutely beautiful, it’s like Frank Sinatra-beautiful. In fact, there’s a YouTube video—guess YouTube is good for something—of Jim Morrison singing it acapella. I guess they just isolated the vocals but it’s just so unbelievably sensual and tactile. But then there’s the song “The End”, which is like 12 minutes long, and mainly it’s an experience; it’s this unfolding world that you fall into when you're listening to it. It’s not virtuosic or anything, but it just has fantastic dynamics and......