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Weekly Alibi Interview
A Man Who Glows, a Sound that Grows Swans founder Gira discusses dissolution, chaos and the now By August March Sometimes when I interview folks, they appear as rock stars, ready to tell you all the great things they've done for their fans and their genre. Other times they come off as skillful musicians, dedicated to their craft, to the excellence in instrumentalism they've dutifully attached themselves to over years of recording sessions, live performances and life on the road. These people I talk to can seem distant and detached... Read more...
Clrvynt Interview
Michael Gira of Swans Talks Rebooting, Larkin Grimm  by J. Bennett   For a man who openly uses the terms “maniacal” and “blind egotism” to describe the way he steered his one-of-a-kind band, Swans, through the 1980s, Michael Gira is unfailingly calm and polite over Skype in 2016. When we thank him for taking the time to speak with us, he replies, “It’s a pleasure and a privilege. I don’t take it for granted that people are interested in what we do.”  Over the course of 34-plus years (including a 13-year... Read more...
Georgia Straight Preview
Swans’ music transports Michael Gira into the naked now by Alexander Varty  Michael Gira is talking about sex, but he might as well be discussing something that he’s only going to do one more time before abstaining forever: tour with the current incarnation of Swans. “Aside from the grunting animal aspect that it can have,” he says in an enjoyably glitch-free Skype interview, “when it’s a focused and honest and unguarded and exploring experience with someone you love, it’s absolutely a true spiritual experience.” Now, we don’t know what goes... Read more...
LA Music Blog show review
SHOW REVIEW: SWANS @ THE FONDA THEATRE The masters of sonic exploration reign supremeBy David Fisch “Just let your freak flag fly.” My friend gave me this great piece of advice after I described to him too analytically how I needed to mentally prepare for Swans at The Fonda Theatre Friday night. You see, for as much as I or anyone might “plan” to expect the unexpected at a Swans show, you don’t really know what a Swans show is even if you’ve attended one before. That applies most specifically... Read more...
SLC Weekly Feature
Mutating Grace  Swans' new end marks a new beginning. By Kimball Bennion  When Swans—Michael Gira's legendary avant rock project that helped shape New York City's post-punk scene in the 1980s—began to tour again for the first time since their break-up almost 15 years prior, there were some who assumed the band was embarking on a nostalgia-fueled cash grab. "I guess they anticipated a kind of reunion tour, which we thankfully didn't provide," Gira says in a recent telephone interview withCity Weekly. Instead, the band—featuring most of its longtime members except... Read more...
Noise Art Intervew
SWANS: THE RIVER RUNS DEEP by Jennifer Dohn | Aug 24, 2016Interview with Michael Gira Swans are looking to see where the river takes them. This year’s LP release, The Glowing Man, was the third and final epoch of an ever-evolving, coincidental trilogy summoning cathartic revelations: visions of illuminated brutalities felt from enigmatic vibrations; elevations in instrumentation between worlds above, and worlds below. It’s sonically pummeling and soothing, like bitter medicine. This manifestation of Swans—at the moment Norman Westberg, Kristof Hahn, Phil Puleo, Christopher Pravdica, Thor Harris and Michael Gira—invokes... Read more...
SF Examiner Interview
Michael Gira takes current Swans on road one last timeBy Tom LanhamMichael Gira has some good news and some bad news for fans of his dark art-rock outfit Swans. The band has a moody new album, “The Glowing Man,” with thoughtful processionals like the 12-minute “Cloud of Forgetting,” a 25-minute companion piece “Cloud of Unknowing” and “When Will I Return?,” a grim real-life survival tale sung by his wife, Jennifer Gira, who experienced said incident (“She doesn’t like me even discussing it,” he says). Yet the longtime lineup that played... Read more...
Son of Marketing Glowing Man Review
SWANS – “THE GLOWING MAN” LUIGI ZAMPIAUGUST 31, 2016“In 2009 when I made the decision to restart my musical group, Swans, I had no idea where it would lead. I knew that if I took the road of mining the past or revisiting the catalog, that it would be fruitless and stultifying. After much thought about how to make this an adventure that would instead led the music forward into unexpected terrain, I chose the five people with whom to work that I believed would most ably provide a sense... Read more...
The CD Critic The Glowing Man Review
The Glowing Man – SwansWhen Swans reformed in 2010 with the release of ‘My Father Will Guide Me up A Rope To The Sky’, people perhaps may not have predicted that the band would ultimately start releasing some of the most defining albums of their career. Having released two phenomenal double-albums ‘The Seer’ and ‘To Be Kind’, Swans return with their latest tour-de-force, ‘The Glowing Man’. The new album follows on much from what its predecessors established, offering gargantuan slabs of experimental post-rock that are as cryptic and enigmatic as... Read more...
Tribune India Glowing Man Review
Swans — The Glowing Man (Young God)    A colossal album for sure The Glowing Man is to be the concluding release from Swans in their current line-up. Since restructuring the band in 2010, Michael Gira has led them through a series of brilliant musical explorations, each of which has evolved their sound. Clocking in at nearly two hours, the album is packed with impressions, textures, and thoughts. The heavier grooves of the previous albums seem to have gone, leaving almost ambient washes of sound that wash over you. Opening pair... Read more...

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