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Angels of Light | How I Loved You | Review
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PopMatters | Wilson NeateThis Is (Not) a Love SongI love that object, but even more I hate it; because I love it, and in order not to lose it, I embed it in myself; but because I hate it, the other within myself is a bad self, I am bad, I am non-existent, I shall kill myself ‹ Julia Kristeva The Angels of Light's Michael Gira is perhaps still best known as frontman of Swans, the avant-garde New York band responsible for some of the most extreme and confrontational noise-terror of the early '80s. At their most uncompromising, Swans weren't a band whose records you enjoyed in the privacy of your own home, unless you lived in bedlam or a torture chamber. Swans had to be witnessed live, in all their disturbing, distressing glory. Only in that context, with the volume loud enough to break the human spirit, did it all make sense. This was a band seeking some kind of perverse salvation or purification by plunging itself and its audience into the depths of total sonic and lyrical abjection. With titles like "A Hanging", "Butcher", and "Raping a Slave", Swans' tracks were not songs -- or music for that......
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Angels of Light | How I Loved You | Review
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PopMatters | Wilson NeateThis Is (Not) a Love SongI love that object, but even more I hate it; because I love it, and in order not to lose it, I embed it in myself; but because I hate it, the other within myself is a bad self, I am bad, I am non-existent, I shall kill myself ‹ Julia Kristeva The Angels of Light's Michael Gira is perhaps still best known as frontman of Swans, the avant-garde New York band responsible for some of the most extreme and confrontational noise-terror of the early '80s. At their most uncompromising, Swans weren't a band whose records you enjoyed in the privacy of your own home, unless you lived in bedlam or a torture chamber. Swans had to be witnessed live, in all their disturbing, distressing glory. Only in that context, with the volume loud enough to break the human spirit, did it all make sense. This was a band seeking some kind of perverse salvation or purification by plunging itself and its audience into the depths of total sonic and lyrical abjection. With titles like "A Hanging", "Butcher", and "Raping a Slave", Swans' tracks were not songs -- or music for that......
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Angels of Light | How I Loved You | Review
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PopMatters | Jason ThompsonStill Life with Angels Subtlty. It's not really a word one would associate with Michael Gira. After all, his former band Swans created loud and angry albums that pushed the limits of not only their fans, but of the band members as well. Gira was used to taking it on the chin in the press for his music, his attitude, and his actions. But that's how he wanted to create his work. Hearing the sounds of Swans, one begins to wonder if Gira managed to exorcise all his demons. One may wonder that even more when listening to Gira and his new group Angels of Light on their second album, How I Loved You. Michael composed the songs over a couple years, and "as it turns out, they're all love songs, in one form or another", says Gira. However, one really shouldn't be surprised. It's not like this is a Wayne Newton album. You can't really come to "expect" anything obvious from Gira. Playing with Michael on the album are such notables as Siobhan Duffy on background vocals, Kid Congo Powers on electric guitar, Bliss Blood working over the saw and ukelele, Larry Mullins on a number......
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Larsen | Rever | Review
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erasingclouds.com | Dave Heatonthe soundtrack for bad dreams and good nightmaresLarsen's Rever album first seems ordinary enough, with guitarists mellowly improvising. Yet by the 2-minute mark it starts getting weird, with gruff voices singing low in the mix, trumpet playing wildly in the back, "instruments" that are hard to identifyÅ and then a cloud of almost-silent noise, leading into the next track. That one's a 12-minute rain cloud-meets-industrial screaming-meets-a slowly oncoming train, with what be an accordion floating about, that turns into a dark, guitar-led marching song. Welcome to the world of the Italian foursome Larsen. It's a mysterious place, where noisy clouds lurk overhead and masked guitarists jump out from behind every corner, sometimes to caress you with a sweet lullaby, sometimes to attack you heavy-metal style. Meanwhile ghostly voices come from the shadows, singing/speaking/begging for your soul, usually in Italian. Other times they'll bust into a melodic stroll, throw a minimalist piece at you like classical musicians, or get all Sonic Youth on your ass...you never know. This is the soundtrack for bad dreams and good nightmares, a strange strange world....
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M. Gira / D. Matz | What We Did | Review
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erasingclouds.com | Dave Heatonpop music as meditation or philosophical explorationWhat We Did, a collaboration between Michael Gira of Angels of Light and Dan Matz of Windsor for the Derby, is pop music as meditation or philosophical exploration. The duo regard what they're playing as pop music, and they're right--the album is filled with lovely melodies and harmonies. Yet this is far from what your average person on the street thinks of as "pop." Everything's delivered in a dreamy way that reveals itself slowly. The vocals are part-sung part-chanted, and the heady, complicated lyrics alternate abstract poetics with musings on the mysteries of the world. There's a world of exploratory noises--plentiful percussion, whirs and beeps. And the album's captivating guitar-playing is of the free, open, mysterious sort. Indeed, this all is a mystery, a fascinating musical puzzle. "A link you can't define/a link you'll lose in time," Matz gently intones on the first track, "Pacing the Locks." Loss and forgetting recur as lyrical themes throughout, while the album as a whole exudes a sense of being hard to define. Its essence may be difficult to capture in words, but it will definitely stay with you.--...