NEWS » Quietus
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LIVE REPORT: Swans (The Quietus)
() - M. Gira, Michael Gira, Quietus, SWANS, young god
Toby Cook gets "sucked down the gloriously uncomfortable rabbit hole once again" as he witnesses two and a half hours of both intensity and restraint at the Roundhouse in London It starts with no more than a murmur. A low, soft hiss, an almost imperceptible resonance that, whilst muted and hushed, seems to charge the very air around you – the first few, almost unnoticed drops of rain and the soft bristle of static that mutes the breeze and gently prickles your skin; the kind of deceptive change in atmosphere and infinitely building, barely tangible sense of complete physical unease that tells you that somewhere, miles and miles out to sea, it's starting to change course, the storm is rolling in – it's coming straight at you and there's nothing you can do about it. You think, you fear, that you know what's about to arrive; you brace, you steady yourself, and you wait for the full, righteous power of the tempest to come crashing into you and to consume you totally. That's how it starts: Not with a bang but with a drone, barely audible at first, but deeply unsettling nonetheless, as Swans' perpetually shirt-adverse percussionist Thor Harris takes......