PRESS
-
Angels of Light | Live | Preview
()
SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN | HEIDI SMITHGira’s new project attracts a broader audienceMichael Gira began Angels of Light in 1998, a year after the death of his legendary dark and disturbing band Swans. While Swans mostly had a cult following, Gira’s new project attracts a broader audience, including die-hard Swans fans. Angels of Light’s current release, How I Loved You wasn’t originally intended as a romantic work, but the love theme arose as Gira collaborated with friends on the album. It’s songs viciously tear your heart out, trample on it, and then gently place it back inside your body, as if it were all just a beautiful nightmare. Gira’s coarse voice – a haunting combination of Johnny Cash and Thurston Moore – soothes you as he croons morbid lyrics about sex and love. He backs up his vocals with sleigh bells, accordion, ukulele, and piano, which add a delicate yet chillingly eerie effect. Angels of Light arouse you to waltz through a cemetery – naked....
-
M. Gira / D. Matz | What We Did | Review
()
Pitchfork Media | Daphne Carr...by far the most palatable of Gira's growing mass of output...A while ago I did this transcription of an Alan Licht interview where he talked about "the old days" and how New York City used to be dangerous, ugly, and full of vagrants, and therefore, also abound with strange and dark magic. In that city, so long over-run by snap-cap glamour kids with dad's Swiss bank account fueling their shoddy-art dreams, Michael Gira was a prince. His was mood unpredictable, his art was both serious and seriously disturbing, and it was either with extreme ecstasy or displeasure that audiences witnessed the violence, sound collage and glass-shattering vocals of his then-band Swans. While touring with Sonic Youth in the mid-80s, Thurston Moore commented that Swans were louder and more abrasive than they could ever be-- that they rather scared Moore & Co. and the rest of the audience. But while Moore's ensemble produced a linear progression of art-rock through the 80s and 90s, Gira's band traveled less predictable paths (from an MCA-fronted cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" to the ambient side project Skin, which also featured fellow Swan, Jarboe) before finally disbanding in......
-
Larsen | Rever | Review
()
BLOW UPUn taglio di luce obliqua che staglia i contorni......evidenzia alcuni tratti mentre un buio profondo solca la forma e il contenuto, non per oscurare ma per segnare le profondita', l'intestizio dell'ascolto. E? singolare quello che racconta M. Gira, per la cui etichetta esce rever: Nelle sessioni di registrazione, vere e proprie fields recordings, il gruppo ha sempre lavorato dietro un sipario senza mai alcun contatto visivo e fisico col produttore. Se questo alla fine e' aneddotica di colore, aggiunge soltanto qualche suggestione all'idea della musica dei Larsen. Che si lascia alle spalle Swans (Impro #2), noise (Radiale) e rock scuro e crea una distanza tra se e l'ascoltatore. Dà il senso di una presenza che non si concede più di tanto e però concede una prospettiva all'ascoltatore (Mentre), uno spazio di manovra, il mistero dell'altro (non il rifiuto), il sogno di un'ombra (finger number six) che potrebbe essere il feedback delle proprie emozioni (Akin), con una distinta ma forte e sottratta alteritaà (Maya)...
-
M. Gira / D. Matz | What We Did | Review
()
Aquarius Records, San Francisco...their pairing finds both artists willing to communicate with each other...At one time, the collaborative project between Michael Gira (Angels of Light / Swans) and Dan Matz (Windsor For The Derby) was called Ourselves, but the two had opted against that in favor of their names. While this may be a silly semantic decision, it promotes the idea of aesthetic equality between two artists instead of the creation of a band with a specific agenda. Both Gira and Matz have developed very strong signature sounds in their respective projects, and their pairing finds both artists willing to communicate with each other and explore means of how to find a common ground between their two distinct sounds. Recently, Gira has ventured more into the singer-songwriter realm, embracing polished orchestrations to support his mythological tales of abjection, sex, love, hate, etc. Matz's Windsor For The Derby has pushed the elements of US post-rock and slow-core together in such a way as to render his mathematically precise compositions emotionally powerful and subtly sublime. In many ways, Windsor For The Derby could be seen as a replication of late period Swans but with the bombastic riffs surgically removed, leaving behind elliptically......
-
M. Gira / D. Matz | What We Did | Review
()
Aquarius Records, San Francisco...their pairing finds both artists willing to communicate with each other...At one time, the collaborative project between Michael Gira (Angels of Light / Swans) and Dan Matz (Windsor For The Derby) was called Ourselves, but the two had opted against that in favor of their names. While this may be a silly semantic decision, it promotes the idea of aesthetic equality between two artists instead of the creation of a band with a specific agenda. Both Gira and Matz have developed very strong signature sounds in their respective projects, and their pairing finds both artists willing to communicate with each other and explore means of how to find a common ground between their two distinct sounds. Recently, Gira has ventured more into the singer-songwriter realm, embracing polished orchestrations to support his mythological tales of abjection, sex, love, hate, etc. Matz's Windsor For The Derby has pushed the elements of US post-rock and slow-core together in such a way as to render his mathematically precise compositions emotionally powerful and subtly sublime. In many ways, Windsor For The Derby could be seen as a replication of late period Swans but with the bombastic riffs surgically removed, leaving behind elliptically......