PRESS » SWANS
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Swans live in Shanghai
() - M. Gira, Michael Gira, SWANS, to be kind
Photo gallery from Smart Shanghai...
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Swans wing in for concerts to support new album To Be Kind (Sydney Morning Herald)
() - M. Gira, Michael Gira, SWANS, to be kind
Twenty minutes into Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture, the epic 34-minute track on Swans' latest album, To Be Kind, Michael Gira shouts loudly 'Toussaint! Toussaint!', invoking the name of Toussaint L'Ouverture, leader of the 18th century slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). Gira demurs on whether there's a deeper resonance between the rebellion led by Toussaint L'Ouverture's and his own iconoclastic, occasionally confrontational musical style. The thematic context for Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture, Gira says, arose almost inadvertently. Conceived originally as the extension of The Seer, the title track to Swans' 2012 album, Gira "needed some words" to punctuate the intense, dynamic rhythm of the fledgling track. "I was reading a biography of Toussaint so I started to invoke his name in the song," Gira says. Once present in the fledgling song, Toussaint "became something [Gira] felt inhabited by as a performer", and the track morphed into a sonic representation of the violent and bloody Haitian rebellion. "Violence was perpetrated on both sides, with great vigour," Gira says. The frontman, who ran away from home in his teens and was imprisoned in Israel at 16 for selling hashish, has a colourful history. Returning to the US, Gira immersed himself in the LA punk community of the late 1970s before moving......
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Michael Gira on Swans, religion and the hubris of Matthew Barney (The Guardian)
() - M. Gira, Michael Gira, SWANS, to be kind
The Swans frontman on why performing is like long-distance running: ‘You keep pushing and pushing and finally you break through into something else’ On stage, Michael Gira’s body is barely able to contain his energy. In person, he is all amiability, his voice sweet, his manner courteous. Not what you would expect from the frontman of the Swans, one of the most confrontational bands to emerge from the No Wave post-punk 1980s in New York City. With their penchant for experiment and their industrial, take-no-prisoners tonality, the band inspired the likes of Nirvana and Sonic Youth to push their limits musically – and otherwise. Having exhausted their own potential, however, they disbanded in 1997 and Gira went on to form the more lyrical Angels of Light. Still, the notion of returning to those extremes haunted him. And in 2010 the Swans re-formed and wasted little time in releasing five records, two recorded live. It’s their studio albums that had critics drawn in. Bordering on Wagnerian, The Seer and To Be Kind are epic explorations of belief, violence, religion, lust and desire, featuring such highlights as the 34-minute Bring the Sun/Toussaint L’Ouverture, an intense ode to the leader of the 1880s......
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Filth #22 on The Quietus 2014 Top Reissues of the year
() - M. Gira, Michael Gira, Quietus, SWANS, to be kind
http://thequietus.com/articles/16854-reissues-compilations-mixes-of-the-year-2014...
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To Be Kind # 3 in Wire magazine's 50 Albums of the Year
() - Angels of Light, M. Gira, Michael Gira, NME, SWANS, to be kind
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