PRESS
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Larsen | Rever | Review
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Waterfront Week | Volume 12.5 | Mark Keresmansome of the breezes of the Mediterranean As I've often stated or implied in these pages, Brooklyn is where paths that crisscross the globe intersect. Take this ensemble from Torino, Italy, Larsen this release (their first?) comes to us via Brooklyn's Young God Records, the label started by M. Gira of Swans/Angels of Light/Body Lovers fame. Larsen who are named on the CD but not identified by photographs mailed Gira some CD-Rs of their music, and then asked him to come to Italy to act as producer for Rever. The tracks that comprise this disc aren't exactly "songs" in the usual sense they're drones and chants, a punk-rock take on the minimalism of Steve Reich and Phillip Glass. Larsen's music most resembles Sonic Youth (in their clang-drone mode), Amon Duul I (hippie tribal juju) and Mogwai (contrasts of silence & roar), but what puts them a cut above the pack of noisemongers is their use of Italian folk elements, acoustic instrumentation and a tantalizing sense of reserve. Though it's unlikely these sounds will be used in any ads promoting tourism in Italy, their music has some of the breezes......
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Larsen | Rever | Review
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The Wire | Jim HaynesThe incredible story of how Larsen's Rever came into being verges on the stuff of urban legend.But the source of the tale is the album's producer Michael Gira, an unlikely suspect in the arena of public deceit. After receiving a series of arcane CD-Rs from an Italian art collective cum hermetic cult called Larsen, Gira was offered big money and a plane ticket to Italy to produce their next album. Intrigued, he took Larsen up on the offer and headed to Italy. Upon his arrival, Gira was never allowed to see the group, who shrouded themselves in the studio behind a screen and communicated with him only through their assistants. From what he could ascertain from the assistants¹ broken translations, Larsen¹s actions were like some ceremonial rite. Correspondingly, Gira felt less like an active producer than a passive field recordist. Yet Larsen¹s liturgical music for these unknown rites suggests a group who are far more interested in Sonic Youth than the archetypes of ceremonial musics. Like other American projects such an Unwound and Blonde Redhead, they center their songs around the dynamics of multiple guitars, which may erupt in buzzsaw staccato and then glide into sublime......
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Jonathan Kane and Swans
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Mojo Magazine | Andrew CardenMichael ... asked if I wanted to work with him on a project he was gonna call SwansHELLO JULY 1982 In the beginning Swans was Michael Gira and myself. We’d played in a band called Circus Mort. Like so many young rock bands, we broke up the moment we put a record out. The evening Circus Mort discussed its demise, Michael and I went out to pick up some beer and cigarettes and he asked if I wanted to work with him on a project he was gonna call Swans. By Spring ‘82, after dozens of rehearsals, we still hadn’t found a proper band. Nobody would stay. Either they weren’t right or hated the music. Then Sue Hanel came along. Sue was the most fearsome guitarist we’d ever heard in New York. She was unbelievable! Sue on guitar, Michael on bass and vocals, and myself on drums, became the nucleus from which the Swans sound evolved. I always thought of Swans as a kind of blues band. One of the things that helped me forge the band’s rhythmic set-up was my fascination with Howlin’ Wolf. His song Evil got played out in my head endlessly while......
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Angels of Light | How I Loved You | Review
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INDIEWORKSHOP.com | mortyalarmingly tactile with a subdued violence and longingMichael Gira, founding member of the seminal New York avant-rock band, Swans started the Angels of Light project immediately after terminating Swans. Angels of Light builds off the more acoustic based ideas presented in his former band. 'How I Loved You', AoL's 2nd album, is an eerily beautiful collection of love songs composed with the help of many of Gira's former collaborators. Gira's voice is deep, melancholy, and warm while singing lyrics that seem alarmingly tactile with a subdued violence and longing. These songs at their foundation are somewhere within the realm of folk, country, and rock and they maintain that bare-bones, honest feel in spite of the spectacular, massive sweeps of orchestration (using acoustic, lap steel, and electric guitars, bass, piano, accordion, casio, dulcimer, castanets, drums, glockenspiel, tambourine, tympani, vibraphone, farfisa organ, sleigh bells). 'My True Body' and 'Public Embarrassment Blues' are my favorite tracks. 'My True Body' has a gallop-like pacing with backing vocal shouts that sound like someone driving horses closer and closer through various swells of sound with the constant of trembling guitars. Right before reaching the breaking point there's a pause before the music re-enters with......
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Angels of Light | How I Loved You | Review
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INDIEWORKSHOP.com | mortyalarmingly tactile with a subdued violence and longingMichael Gira, founding member of the seminal New York avant-rock band, Swans started the Angels of Light project immediately after terminating Swans. Angels of Light builds off the more acoustic based ideas presented in his former band. 'How I Loved You', AoL's 2nd album, is an eerily beautiful collection of love songs composed with the help of many of Gira's former collaborators. Gira's voice is deep, melancholy, and warm while singing lyrics that seem alarmingly tactile with a subdued violence and longing. These songs at their foundation are somewhere within the realm of folk, country, and rock and they maintain that bare-bones, honest feel in spite of the spectacular, massive sweeps of orchestration (using acoustic, lap steel, and electric guitars, bass, piano, accordion, casio, dulcimer, castanets, drums, glockenspiel, tambourine, tympani, vibraphone, farfisa organ, sleigh bells). 'My True Body' and 'Public Embarrassment Blues' are my favorite tracks. 'My True Body' has a gallop-like pacing with backing vocal shouts that sound like someone driving horses closer and closer through various swells of sound with the constant of trembling guitars. Right before reaching the breaking point there's a pause before the music re-enters with......