PRESS
New Yorker Bowery Preview
Night Life
SWANS
July 29 2016
In 2010, after a thirteen-year hiatus, the restless musical provocateur Michael Gira reformed this iconic No Wave-era group. Consciously avoiding nostalgia, the band began an exhilarating second life, as vital and occasionally terrifying as its first incarnation, when it was the confrontational enfant terrible of early-eighties downtown New York. The reformed lineup includes many former associates, among them Gira’s visionary alter ego, the guitarist Norman Westberg. Last month, the band released a new double album, “The Glowing Man,” which Gira has said will be the last studio record of this incarnation. (The group will disband after a lengthy worldwide tour.) Like its three recent predecessors, “The Glowing Man” relies heavily on repetition, ritualistic rhythm, and ecstatic, violent climaxes. But it also features many quiet, ruminative passages and a more varied sonic tableau, highlighted by a contribution from the experimental cellist Okkyung Lee and by the hundred different instruments played by the group’s periodic special guest, Bill Rieflin. With Okkyung Lee opening solo.
Bowery Ballroom
6 Delancey St.
New York, NY 10002
http://boweryballroom.com
212-533-2111