PRESS
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Creative Loafing Jarboe Interview / Atlanta Show Preview
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Former Swans collaborator Jarboe reflects on Michael Gira’s influence, Atlanta’s place in the group’s history, and staying positive Jarboe joins Swans tonight (Fri., July 22) at Terminal West. CHAD RADFORD JULY 22, 2016 Swans are on the road, playing songs from the group's latest album, The Glowing Man. It's the last stand for the current incarnation of the group. On July 21, word spread that former Swans collaborator and longtime Atlanta resident Jarboe is making an appearance with the group tonight (Fri., July 22), at Terminal West, singing the World of Skin's "Blood On Your Hands." Before the show, Jarboe took a few minutes to talk about her time working with frontman Michael Gira, Atlanta's place in the group's history, and staying focused on positive energy in the age of the internet. Aside from singing on “A Piece Of The Sky” from Swans 2012 album, The Seer, you haven’t been active with the group for nearly two decades. I was at the 2011 show at Variety Playhouse. That’s the only new Swans show that I’ve personally seen. Michael asked me to sing when they came back in 2012, but I was out on my own tour. So it's great that I'm......
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Blurt Glowing Man Review
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SWANS – The Glowing ManAlbum: The Glowing ManArtist: SwansLabel: Young God Release Date: June 17, 2016 The Upshot: Two-disc culmination of the direction the band has taken since its reactivation seven years ago, stripping Michael Gira’s lyric themes to the core amid colossal walls of sound. BY MICHAEL TOLAND If you’re gonna announce that your latest album is the last by this particular iteration of your band, you better have something special on your hands. Fortunately, Michael Gira does with The Glowing Man, the fourteenth album by his band Swans and, as advertised, the final project by this version. (The intention is to have a rotating cast of players after this.) The culmination of the direction the band has taken since its reactivation seven years ago, The Glowing Man brings it all home. The first two songs on disk one serve as opposite sides of the same coin – “Cloud of Forgetting” and “Cloud of Unknowing” push the band even further into the realms of the orchestral, as the pounding percussion, jagged guitars and Gira’s raw baritone combine into a wall of sound that’s damn near symphonic. The arrangements ebb and flow from colossal to calm without ever descending into......
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Nakid Magazine NY Show Review
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SWANS: ‘THE AGONY OF MICHAEL GIRA’ LIVE IN NYCText + photography by: A.F. CORTES Every Swans show seems like a masochistic ordeal of sonic survival. Michael Gira and company are on a mission to annihilate the audiences’ ears with a constant repetition of monotonous riffs at the decibels of a volcano’s explosion. But, as in any dysfunctional relationship, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In this iteration the band feels heavier in layered melodies and lighter in percussion. The first noticeable element was the absence of the great shirtless-gladiator-looking percussionist Thor Harris. Some audience members dared to ask about him, but as usual, Michael Gira’s stage persona only cares about the present and never dwells in the past, yet he answered starting the next song with an unfazed look. The sound is subtly different; more ambient noises are in the background, yet the intensity of every Swans show is intact. The rest of the band were the usual musicians, with the exception of a keyboard player replacing Thor’s corner on stage; the power of the drummer Phil Puleo, the stoic attitude of Norman Westerberg on guitar, the energy of Christopher Pravdica on bass, the intensity of Christoph......
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Scotsman Concert Review
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Gig review: SwansAmerican noise rock pioneers Swans have been blowing minds and blowing speakers on and off for the past 30 years, but their current tour will be the final one for the band in its present incarnation – one which includes a charismatic man called Thor on dulcimer. Oran Mor, Glasgow **** They are an imposing bunch in many ways – their grizzled sage of a frontman Michael Gira has cult leader potential while the rest of this band of warhorses are cut from similar cloth to Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds. You would not wish to tangle with them but they make a mighty devotional racket. Oran Mor was packed with acolytes primed for a religious experience. The last few Swans’ albums have been triple prog rock epics, so there was no hurry for the sonic slaughter to begin. Rather there was a good half hour of hypnotic hum and rippling electronics in the Eno/Pink Floyd tradition before the bludgeoning began with the doomy toll of bass and guitar and Gira delivering a dread incantation over a controlled explosion of noise. While the audience felt the vibrations surge through them, the sound on stage was characterised by Gira as......
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Spiegel Swans in Hamburg Feature
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Swans live in HamburgBOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Keine Band ist live lauter: Die Swans sind seit über 30 Jahren berüchtigt für Konzerte an der Schmerzgrenze. Bald werden sie von der Bühne verschwinden. Zeit, sich noch einmal ihrem Lärm zu stellen. Um die Liveauftritte der Swans ranken sich Legenden. Es geht dabei meistens um die infernalische Lautstärke, die immer wieder Menschen im Publikum in die Ohnmacht gezwungen haben soll. Einmal, das war in den Achtzigerjahren, hat die Band in London angeblich in einem kleinen Club eine Musikanlage aufgebaut, die gereicht hätte, um ein ganzes Stadion zu beschallen. Dann verriegelten sie die Ein- und Ausgänge mit Ketten und legten los. Es soll eine Massenpanik gegeben haben. Wenn man also heute ein Konzert der Swans besucht, sollte man sich dann Watte in die Ohren stopfen? Ernsthaft? Wegen der alten Geschichten? Aber Michael Gira, der Chef der Band, ist mittlerweile 62 Jahre alt. Der stopft sich garantiert keine Watte in die Ohren. Also hinhören, ungefiltert! Man muss ja. Jetzt, hier, in Hamburg. Denn nach der aktuellen Tour soll die 1982 gegründete Gruppe nach Giras Willen größtenteils von den Konzertbühnen verschwinden. Er will sie dann wieder einmal komplett umbauen und kaum noch live spielen. Es ist......