PRESS
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Michael Gira The Body Lovers: Number One of Three
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University of Toronto's VarsityAnyone who has spent as long doing music like Michael Gira deserves respect.Unfortunately, there are few artists around who can match Gira’s fifteen-odd-year commitment to a singular vision. As the father and main member of the Swans since the early eighties, he perpetuated an instantly recognizable style throughout perpetual personnel and sonic changes. While the Swans’ fellow New Yorkers and initial touring mates Sonic Youth became lost in a poptastic daydream of commercial acceptance, Gira got down in the underground and created masterworks like The Great Annihilator and Soundtracks for the Blind. Now the Swans are gone, and Gira is solo.Gira may be solo, but on The Body Lovers he gets musical assistance from familiars like Jarboe, who was the Swans’ other vocalist and occasional songwriter and who adds some beautiful melismas to this mix, Kris Force, James Plotkin, Mike Vaino, and Bill Rieflin, who contributes some stunning piano pummelling. This mostly instrumental composition highlights Gira’s ability to create unified and emotion-laden music without words and without playing everything himself.This record forwards Gira’s career but is also forward looking. It sounds distinct from the Swans, while it continues Gira’s futuristic focus on building structures from the juxtaposition......
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Number One of Three | The Body Lovers | Review
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Williamette Week | John Graham...everything from dense, sludgy dirges to airy, orchestrated hymns with a sense of disturbance…As the unquestioned leader (dictator?) of Swans, Michael Gira imbued everything from dense, sludgy dirges to airy, orchestrated hymns with a sense of disturbance--even the tamest of his works were fraught with melancholy and menace. Now Swans are gone, but this Body Lovers project is an incisive continuation of his past obsessions; in fact, Number One of Three is, for all intents and purposes, Soundtracks for the Blind (Swans' last album) without the singing. The full-album opus, first in an intended trilogy, is divided into 10 sections. Part One sets a claustrophobic tone as drones swarm about in threatening clouds. Part Two offers respite via accordion, acoustic guitar and throaty sobs from Gira's partner, Jarboe. Then it's back to a slow burn climaxing midway through Part Four, wherein atonal piano chords stomp down a deserted hallway, later filled with electronic chirrs and a whirring, rattling machine. Parts 8-10 relax with sedate spaciousness and major-key accents. After lulling the listener into a trance, the album ends abruptly--it stops mid-note--leaving one parched in anticipation of the follow-up. Bring it on, my ears thirst for more....
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Overall impression: good.
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Mark WeddleThe Body Haters / The Body Lovers are the first post-SWANS releases from Michael Gira.The Body Haters is a single track, predominantly instrumental accompaniment to last year's superb Body Lovers "Number One of Three". Whereas the Lovers disc was more varied in sound and mood, the Haters disc focuses solely on a shifting drone throughout the 34 minutes and 13 seconds (with the exception of some heavily processed, moaning vocals by Jarboe in the latter part). "34:13" was obviously created by feeding sounds into a Macintosh (as evidenced by the black & white front and back cover art of the slipcase) and processing them, a technique which Gira also used to great effect on the final SWANS cds. The drone is fairly minimal and changes every few minutes either via an effect, a new loop being added or an old one replaced. It's not nearly as harsh as I expected it to be ... the last few minutes of the disc are by far the most aggressive, the rest is relatively tame as far as drones go. Good stuff, but not nearly as orgasmic as the more varied and collaborative Body Lovers effort. I also prefer the drone pieces......
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The Hammer and the Anvil:
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Paul McEnery | Axcess MagazineOnce apon a time, a couple of New York noise bands were up each other's arseholes…...on tour together, recording each other's songs, redefining the state of aural attack. Sonic Youth and Swans are different bands now. Youth went overground (ahem) the year punk broke. Swans drove the hard road into a ditch last year—but breaking up has been a creatice breakthrough. Fifteen years later, Axcess is proud to present this address on the start of the art of noise. Dead Alive: An apparently endless wake wound down this year upon the release of a double live CD entitled, with trademark gallows humor, Swans Are Dead. And on that note, Swans frontman Michael Gira wrapped up the most bitter and ecstatic act to ever hit the stage. Anyone who caught the last two tours (and is there a fan who didn't?) found it a memorial of comforting familiarity, a rough combination of a merciless flogging and voices from the other side. Perfect funeral music, in other words. If you need the live Swans experience translated any further into words, I suggest you check out Gira's captivating rant on the web site (www.swans.pair.com). But for a dead guy,......
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EX-SWANS FRONTMAN PERFORMS IN N.Y. WITH MEMBERS OF IGGY POP, MINISTRY
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Kevin Raub | Rocktopolis / AllstarEx-Swans frontman Michael Gira, whose dark, moody punk soundscapes have proved cathartic to a slew of post-early '80s punk bands, will perform an exclusive American engagement of his latest project, the Body Lovers, in New York in September.The Body Lovers are Gira's first project since Swans' farewell performance in London in 1997. Described as a "psycho- ambient soundtrack- without- a- film," the Body Lovers' debut CD, Number One of Three, was released last April. According to Gira, the transition from extreme, shell- shocking punk to instrumental ear candy was a natural progression from Swans. "The Body Lovers sort of extends what I was trying to do with Swans, especially on the last tour, with long, instrumental sections based on everything from non-musical sounds to samples to live musicians," says Gira. "Some parts are pretty violent and some are pretty, I guess you could say. It's essentially one long piece of music that migrates along the way." The Body Lovers will perform an hour-long piece of music based loosely on a track from Number One of Three at the Bowery Ballroom on Sept. 25. The performance will call on a wide array of musicians, and, at......