PRESS
-
Larsen | Rever | Review
()
RUMORE | Vittore BaroniGira ha paragonato l'esperienza di produrre i Larsen alla registrazione sul campo di riti sonori officiati da un'oscura congrega.Suggestive metafore a parte, il secondo album dei piemontesi prende le distanze dai canonici climi gtr noise del precedente No Arms, No Legs, aprendosi ad arcane situazioni in cui convivono studiati rumorismi e languidi brandelli melodici, con ampio uso di strumenti etno-acustici ( banjo, flauto, fisarmonica, etc...). Richiami al classico approccio industrial persistono in tracce tese e martellanti come Radiale e Maya mentre la recitazione (non solo) nella ns lingua di Silvia Grosso ispira inevitabili confronti con quanti hanno finora tentato di sposare gioventù sonica e canzone d'autore. A rendere singolare e prezioso il lavoro è però soprattutto il ruolo determinante svolto dall'improvvisazione collettiva nel pervenire alle forme fissate su nastro, un'interazione di blocchi prestrutturati e libere esplorazioni che ha fruttato un suono misterioso, introspettivo ed evocativo....
-
MICHAEL GIRA ON THE ANGELS OF LIGHT
()
Discorder Magazine, Vancouver BC | Cover Story | BarbaraAND OTHER MAGICAL THINGSMaybe I was wrong to contemplate a feminist analysis of Mr. Michael Gira. As I stepped into the impersonal and awkward process of initiating an email interview with the man behind the Swans etc., I felt a surge of righteous applicability - I could stick my undergraduate theories all over him, and he wouldn't even care! The day after I sent my questions off, I felt the first tremors of uncertainty. My careful wording, and double-doublethink self-repression notwithstanding, I thought for sure that he would spot me for what I am: a) a university student, b) a very big fan, c) a woman who has trouble with men, and who finds interviews extremely intimidating. As it goes, I never really asked him anything approaching my real questions, which were all about bodies and the things humans communicate through them: Love, power, powerlessness, hate. Bodies are what we are, after all. Bodies, real and imagined, have been the singular fixation of Gira's lyrical universe in everything I've ever heard by him. I really want to dig up those bodies and talk about them, cuz most people who write love songs......
-
M. Gira / D. Matz | What We Did | Review
()
The Wire | Jim Haynesfounded on mutual respectDuring one of the final Swans tours across the US, leader Michael Gira employed the Texan post-rock ensemble Windsor For The Derby as support. Up until this collaboration between Gira and the latter's Dan Matz, Windsor had appeared to be an unusual choice, as Swans' might and emotional catharsis clearly overwhelmed Windsor's pristine repetitions and understated, Slintish punctuations. Yet in the synthesis of What We Did it becomes clear that Swans and Windsor merely took different approaches towards the same impetus to control sound in order to communicate through it. Where Gira's late period Swans built a furious trance-rock from baroque slabs of hypnotic guitar noise to augment his poetic mythologies of sex, hate, love and death, Windsor rendered an awe of the sublime through the surgical removal of bombast and a technically precise applications of mathematical compositions. Thus Gira could be seen as the Shaman and Matz the Anaesthetist. To a certain extent, Gira's collaboration with Matz picks up where Swans left off with their tense, droning grooves. Yet, Gira is speaking truthfully when he said What We Did was founded on mutual respect. As testament to such claims the album opens......
-
MICHAEL GIRA ON THE ANGELS OF LIGHT
()
Discorder Magazine, Vancouver BC | Cover Story | BarbaraAND OTHER MAGICAL THINGSMaybe I was wrong to contemplate a feminist analysis of Mr. Michael Gira. As I stepped into the impersonal and awkward process of initiating an email interview with the man behind the Swans etc., I felt a surge of righteous applicability - I could stick my undergraduate theories all over him, and he wouldn't even care! The day after I sent my questions off, I felt the first tremors of uncertainty. My careful wording, and double-doublethink self-repression notwithstanding, I thought for sure that he would spot me for what I am: a) a university student, b) a very big fan, c) a woman who has trouble with men, and who finds interviews extremely intimidating. As it goes, I never really asked him anything approaching my real questions, which were all about bodies and the things humans communicate through them: Love, power, powerlessness, hate. Bodies are what we are, after all. Bodies, real and imagined, have been the singular fixation of Gira's lyrical universe in everything I've ever heard by him. I really want to dig up those bodies and talk about them, cuz most people who write love songs......
-
Larsen | Rever | Review
()
RUMORE | Vittore BaroniGira ha paragonato l'esperienza di produrre i Larsen alla registrazione sul campo di riti sonori officiati da un'oscura congrega.Suggestive metafore a parte, il secondo album dei piemontesi prende le distanze dai canonici climi gtr noise del precedente No Arms, No Legs, aprendosi ad arcane situazioni in cui convivono studiati rumorismi e languidi brandelli melodici, con ampio uso di strumenti etno-acustici ( banjo, flauto, fisarmonica, etc...). Richiami al classico approccio industrial persistono in tracce tese e martellanti come Radiale e Maya mentre la recitazione (non solo) nella ns lingua di Silvia Grosso ispira inevitabili confronti con quanti hanno finora tentato di sposare gioventù sonica e canzone d'autore. A rendere singolare e prezioso il lavoro è però soprattutto il ruolo determinante svolto dall'improvvisazione collettiva nel pervenire alle forme fissate su nastro, un'interazione di blocchi prestrutturati e libere esplorazioni che ha fruttato un suono misterioso, introspettivo ed evocativo....