PRESS
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Fallen angel Swans leader Michael Gira returns with a new project
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Mitchell Foy | Creative Loafing"I'm happy to put Swans behind me." It's practically the first sentence out of the mouth of the iconoclastic Michael Gira as he shakes off the weariness of his recent trip overseas. Happy? It's hard to believe. The image of the angry young man of the early/mid-'s80 ripping himself apart at the seams as the rest of the Swans slave away at their instruments is so deeply ingrained it's hard to imagine Mr. Gira being jubilant about anything. Yet with the release of New Mother, by his latest project Angels of Light (on his own Young God Records no less), it's easy to see that the albatross of his former band has been fully loosed from his neck. Quite successfully, one might add. Sure, since Swans' demise in 1997 Gira has released a couple of formidable discs under his Body Lovers/Body Haters umbrella. But those were obviously projects; sounds and textures endlessly looped and manipulated via the trusty computer. Angels of Light, though, marks the re-emergence the legions have been waiting for. It is, for lack of a better term, a band, albeit one of a dramatically different nature. Gira, guitar in hand, is - up......
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Angels of Light to descend upon the Launchpad
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Albuquerque Journal | Kenn RodriguezAmong avant-garde music fans, songwriter Michael Gira is legendary.Gira's Swans were known for their aesthetic as well as surreal approach to making music. Gira's Swans were known for their gothic feel, droning sonic industrial noise as well as asymmetrical, non-pop-song approach to song writing. Gira disbanded Swans in 1996, throwing himself into spoken word tours and travel before returning with two new musical projects: the more experimental Body Lovers/Haters and the band-orient-ed The Angels of Light The group's new album, "New Mother," released on Gira's Young God Records, is as ornate and complex as anything Swans did in its 15-year run. Gira says the project was taxing. "I like the music, but just putting it together was the usual nightmare of budget - running out of money, begging, borrowing, stealing, cheating to put it together," he told Alternative Press recently. "In the process of recording I actually had to solicit investors." The resulting fragmented approach to recording seems to have had little effect on the stark, unified sound of "New Mother." But Gira was quick to point out that he's enjoying the creative freedom he's now afforded. "I'm glad to move beyond Swans," Gira says. "It......
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Angels of Light | New Mother
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The Rocket, No. 303 | Dave CliffordThe measure of any influential artist is their ability to summon the soul and emotion of collective history within the expression of one’s own personal experience.While countless contemporaries wallow in self-misery and miserable poetry. Michael Gira’s ruptured synthesis of blues, folk and rock music provides eviscerating portrayals of human life. His songs could be of his life, or they could be of our own – they’re universal in their message and, therefore, may touch all who listen. While the 17 majestic, narrative songs of the Angels of Light debut, New Mother, on Gira's own Young God Records, unveil a completely new group and aesthetic, Gira's inimitable songwriting bears similarities to the Love of Life and Burning World – era Swans, meshing world folk musics and dissected blues. Not surprisingly, Gira brings along several former Swans' members, -(including multi-instrumentalists Bill Reiflin and Bill Bronson) the extended cast of contributors for the singer's first album and group tour since Swans dissolved over two years ago. "Praise Your Name" opens the album with delicate vibraphone chmies that lead into acoustic guitar strums and trickling piano trills as Gira asks, "Where are you wounded girls with bruised faces......
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Return of the Dark Angel
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Philadelphia City Paper | A.D. AmorosiThe swan song of The Swans wasn't the end of Michael Gira.When Michael Gira was a Swan (or more accurately, The Swans), he made music grand, grieving and grotesque for over 15 years. There was romance in the crushing, industrial records Greed, Holy Money and Young God as well as disquieting ambience in the somber epics Soundtracks For The Blind and The Body Lovers. But The Swans are over. In its place is The Angels Of Light - a quieter yet no less forlorn project. "It sounds like a cliché but so far, response, throughout Europe at least, has been tremendous," says tour-worn Gira, just arrived in a hotel in southern Germany en route to Italy. "I had some trepidation before we started the shows, thinking people would be expecting the force of Swans... the volume of Swans. But people have been really into the intimacy of it all." Ask him about The Swans and he finds it hard to discuss. "I can't find The Swans' apex because I can't listen to them... I think it has value, yes, but you can't compare it to what I'm doing now." On The Angels Of Light's debut,......
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Lisa Germano | Review
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Spin Magazine | Lorraine Ali one of the decade's most painfully honest releases. September 1999Geek the Girl Lisa Germano’s third release, 1994’s Geek the Girl, is quietly devastating. Recorded on four-track in her Bloomington, Indiana apartment, it chronicled the depths of fear- and romantic hope-with dark humor and biting clarity. “I wanted it to be a fun record about the silly things girls do, but instead I went where the songs took me,” says Germano, who served time as a fiddle player for both John Mellencamp and Bob Seger. Unfortunately, Geek was overshadowed by the more aggressive grrrl rock of the moment- see Courtney Love’s retrebutional “fuck you” and Liz Phair’s ability to “take full advantage of every man” she met. On Geek Germano was the one taken advantage of, channeling her resultant rage into discomfortingly pretty songs like “Cry Wolf” (“A change of mind in that backseat or dirty room/They say she got just what she wanted.”) and “A Psychopath,” where she samples a 911 call while numbly singing, “That thing of mace, where did I leave it?” Far too intense for casual listeners, it’s one of the decade’s most painfully honest releases. “Geek’s just one of those records you put......