PRESS

  • Larsen | Rever | Review

    ()

    All Music Guide | Andy Kellmandelicately brushed melodies come along and whisk you outThe mystique surrounding the making of this record is enough to make one take the great music on it for granted. This Italian quartet initiated a courtship with Young God's Michael Gira by sending him bizarrely packaged CDRs with varying contents, thus enabling Gira to acquaint himself with the band's sound and range. For what purpose was unknown to him at the time. Following a series of these discs, Gira received a final package that included a round-trip flight to Italy and a sum of money -- the producer was invited to work on the band's record. Curiosity aroused, Gira obliged. For three weeks he recorded the band and edited the results without actually seeing the band; the band, a pair of engineers, and the producer communicated through a translator as a screen divided them. The result? Much like Ulan Bator's Ego: Echo, another record overseen and released by Gira, Rever is an excellent LP that carries in the tradition of Gira's own Swans and Sonic Youth without making overt references to the past. It sounds like most of the record derived from extended jamming sessions that......

  • Michael Gira | Interview

    ()

    Spike Magazine | Jordon Leigh BortleFlawed Beauty - The Consumer And Other Stories Michael R. Gira is most widely known as the driving force behind Swans, undoubtedly one of the most extreme bands to have ever graced the planet. Gira called time on Swans in 1997 after 15 years of sonic experimentation but has not been idle since. In Swans' wake followed The Angels of Light, which produced last spring's release "How I Loved You"; a haunting and beautiful body of work. Then there is the World of Skin, Gira's solo records, his found-sound ambient project The Body Lovers (an on-going three part series) and its "companion" release The Body Haters. Yet Gira's creative output has not been strictly defined by his work within the context of sound alone. He is also a writer of fiction, most notably with his acclaimed collection The Consumer And Other Stories, a spoken word performer, an artist and designer, and has been known to do film scores in independent cinema, most notably Two Small Bodies, a film by Beth B. Most interviews with Mr. Gira have tended to deal with his accomplishments or goings-on in his work as a musician and recording artist or......

  • Michael Gira | Interview

    ()

    Spike Magazine | Jordon Leigh BortleFlawed Beauty - The Consumer And Other Stories Michael R. Gira is most widely known as the driving force behind Swans, undoubtedly one of the most extreme bands to have ever graced the planet. Gira called time on Swans in 1997 after 15 years of sonic experimentation but has not been idle since. In Swans' wake followed The Angels of Light, which produced last spring's release "How I Loved You"; a haunting and beautiful body of work. Then there is the World of Skin, Gira's solo records, his found-sound ambient project The Body Lovers (an on-going three part series) and its "companion" release The Body Haters. Yet Gira's creative output has not been strictly defined by his work within the context of sound alone. He is also a writer of fiction, most notably with his acclaimed collection The Consumer And Other Stories, a spoken word performer, an artist and designer, and has been known to do film scores in independent cinema, most notably Two Small Bodies, a film by Beth B. Most interviews with Mr. Gira have tended to deal with his accomplishments or goings-on in his work as a musician and recording artist or......

  • M. Gira / D. Matz | What We Did | Review

    ()

    Dusted Magazine | Emerson Dameron pooled their collective demonsHumanity was created on a gray, humid summer afternoon. We¹d been waiting for something awful to happen all day. Immediately cursed with a self-concept and cognizance of history, the human was immediately doomed to annihilate itself through a combination of hubris and guilt. Things progressed very slowly. On this day, the gods, Michael Gira (ex-Swans, The Angels Of Light) and Dan Matz (Windsor For The Derby), pooled their collective demons, consigning them to occasionally awkward, often transcendent collaborations. After equipping them with acoustic guitars and decorating their habitat with eerie whirrs and drones, Gira and Matz sent the demons to roam the earth. Sometimes these foolishly proud humans cleaved to their own kind and made beautiful, lulling music together. Sometimes, they hastily decided to stray and defiantly stuck to their newly chosen paths, even after being punished for their inability to make do with the established points and angles. Pervasively enthralled with all that would eventually destroy them, they thirsted and they slaked. In the meantime, these outcasts, too, made some jaw-dropping music. In both camps, the men were prone to make the women suffer through their unhinged self-indulgence and repent through......

  • Larsen | Rever | Review

    ()

    Pitchforkmedia | Dominique LeoneWhat I get here: gray skies, hollow trees, gallows poles...Rating: 7.9 ...night beasts along the moors, bouts of depression lit afire with trance, and trash can percussion-- not to mention more than an ounce of poetic pretense. But of course, when was emotional music supposed to deliver anything more weighty? It's very contagious, and I can hope that was the intention. Truthfully, I have no idea how or why this mysterious Italian band made this music. Furthermore, I'm not alone in this. Last year, Swans founder Michael Gira (and Young God Records chief) started getting odd packages from Torino, Italy. Inside were CD-Rs of sounds compiled, produced and otherwise emitted from a band of people known simply as Larsen. On his website, Gira describes the music therein as ranging from soft, accordion-based abstractions to "sometimes just a single sound or noise, a scraping sound, as if someone were slowly etching a piece of rusted metal with a blade of some sort." The final package he received had nothing like that, but rather a wad of cash, a ticket to Italy, and a request for him to produce an album for Larsen. And as anyone with even a......

View this profile on Instagram

SWANS (@swans_official) • Instagram photos and videos

©2017 | YOUNG GOD RECORDS, LLC