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Swans glide into Detroit | Interview
the Daily | Ted WattsWant a great marketing gimmick? Look no further than to long term ambient rockers the Swans.With the release of its newest album, "Soundtracks for the Blind," the band (meaning the two primaries, Michael Gira and the mono-sobriqueted Jarboe) announced that it wasn't going to record any more studio albums and that its next tour would be the last. It's the old carnival trick: "Last chance to see!" Like all the ads have said, tonight is the Swans' final area appearance - with a special live line-up,... Read more...
The Final Sacrifice - M. Gira retires Swans
Jordon N. Mamone | CMJ"$250.000!" spits Michael Gira. "Christ! You could almost have my penis for that!"Swans' mastermind and founder has made it known that he's seriously put that price on hacking off his right pinkie. "[I] could get a patron," he explains. "He or she could have it and put it in aspic and put it on their mantelpiece, and then I would live." With the same sort of severing conviction. Gira has also an decided to terminate Swans after 15 or uncompromising years. "I found that the name... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
The Equipment Authority | Kurt B. Reighleyan ambitious collage that folds found sounds, tape loops, and studio recordings into a dense aural melangeOften compared with Sonic Youth, Swans has consistently displayed greater stylistic diversity than its down-town N.Y.C. art-noise colleagues without deviating from frontman Michael Gira's singularly bleak vision. This, the band's last release (supposedly Swans is calling it quits), is no exception. It's an ambitious collage that folds found sounds, tape loops, and studio recordings into a dense aural melange. Soundtracks for the Blind eschews conventional verse/chorus/bridge structures, favoring... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
CMJ | Jon FineCMJ February 1997 critic pick for the monthSoundtracks for the Blind is the final studio album from SWANS, and though it's impossible to imagine a document that could provide a summing up to their 15 years recorded output, this two-hour-plus double CD (budget priced and beautifully packaged) covers enough ground to serve as an apt final testament. The cast of characters here includes old-school SWANS Norman Westberg and Al Kizys as well as Vudi late of American Music Club. Like recent SWANS shows, Soundtracks for the Blind's... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
Magnet #27 | Laura DeMarcoa landscape fraught with intensity and experimentationBorn in the New York underground noise scene 15 years ago, Swans have turned out some of the most consistently dark, eerie and unconventionally passionate (not to mention slowest) music around. Soundtracks For The Blind, the final Swans record, is no exception. Ranging from epic highs to the darkest lows, this double album is a disturbing journey through a landscape fraught with intensity and experimentation. Beginning with a barely audible but immensely nuanced melody, the record grows from delicate noise... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
Wired | Mitch MyersSwans bid us farewell with a recording of Homeric magnitudeAfter 15 years of making uncompromising music, the Swans bid us farewell with a recording of Homeric magnitude. Intense sonic assaults jut against gentle instrumentals; tape loops mesh raw feedback with the lost conversations of dead souls; samples are tucked between carvings of art and language. In 1950, Hinsie and Shatsky wrote: "Autistic material ... appear[s] as daydreams, phantasies, delusions, hallucinations, etc. In classical instances, such as occurs in schizophrenia, the unconscious sphere makes the largest contribution." This... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
The Equipment Authority | Kurt B. Reighleyan ambitious collage that folds found sounds, tape loops, and studio recordings into a dense aural melangeOften compared with Sonic Youth, Swans has consistently displayed greater stylistic diversity than its down-town N.Y.C. art-noise colleagues without deviating from frontman Michael Gira's singularly bleak vision. This, the band's last release (supposedly Swans is calling it quits), is no exception. It's an ambitious collage that folds found sounds, tape loops, and studio recordings into a dense aural melange. Soundtracks for the Blind eschews conventional verse/chorus/bridge structures, favoring... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
CMJ | Jon FineCMJ February 1997 critic pick for the monthSoundtracks for the Blind is the final studio album from SWANS, and though it's impossible to imagine a document that could provide a summing up to their 15 years recorded output, this two-hour-plus double CD (budget priced and beautifully packaged) covers enough ground to serve as an apt final testament. The cast of characters here includes old-school SWANS Norman Westberg and Al Kizys as well as Vudi late of American Music Club. Like recent SWANS shows, Soundtracks for the Blind's... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
Wired | Mitch MyersSwans bid us farewell with a recording of Homeric magnitudeAfter 15 years of making uncompromising music, the Swans bid us farewell with a recording of Homeric magnitude. Intense sonic assaults jut against gentle instrumentals; tape loops mesh raw feedback with the lost conversations of dead souls; samples are tucked between carvings of art and language. In 1950, Hinsie and Shatsky wrote: "Autistic material ... appear[s] as daydreams, phantasies, delusions, hallucinations, etc. In classical instances, such as occurs in schizophrenia, the unconscious sphere makes the largest contribution." This... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
The Equipment Authority | Kurt B. Reighleyan ambitious collage that folds found sounds, tape loops, and studio recordings into a dense aural melangeOften compared with Sonic Youth, Swans has consistently displayed greater stylistic diversity than its down-town N.Y.C. art-noise colleagues without deviating from frontman Michael Gira's singularly bleak vision. This, the band's last release (supposedly Swans is calling it quits), is no exception. It's an ambitious collage that folds found sounds, tape loops, and studio recordings into a dense aural melange. Soundtracks for the Blind eschews conventional verse/chorus/bridge structures, favoring... Read more...

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