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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
BEELD | Theunis EngelbrechtAfrikaans language newspaper; Johannesburg, South AfricaThis cult group is progressive, alternative The pop scene is so overloaded that one inevitably misses certain important albums. Thousands of albums are never released in South Africa. That's why the group Swans is relatively unknown down here. This cult group, which consists of Michael Gira and female vocalist Jarboe, has been making a contribution overseas for the past 15 years. With albums like Holy Money, Children of God, The Burning World, White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity, Body To Body... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
BEELD | Theunis EngelbrechtAfrikaans language newspaper; Johannesburg, South AfricaThis cult group is progressive, alternative The pop scene is so overloaded that one inevitably misses certain important albums. Thousands of albums are never released in South Africa. That's why the group Swans is relatively unknown down here. This cult group, which consists of Michael Gira and female vocalist Jarboe, has been making a contribution overseas for the past 15 years. With albums like Holy Money, Children of God, The Burning World, White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity, Body To Body... Read more...
Interview with Michael Gira of Swans
last sigh press | Kim Alexander and Michael Lundconducted at the Double Door, Chicago IllinoisWe wandered into the bar early and cold from the brisk winter air to find Gira, which did take some doing in the catacomb like basement of the club. After checking out a number of rooms in the place, we heard voices coming from down the end of a hallway. Slowly we were guided by the deep droning of a male voices, only to peek around an open door to see Michael Gira in the company... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
METROLAND, Albany, NY | J. Eric Smitha whole that transcends its parts by devouring and eradicating themSoundtracks for the Blind is a two-disc set featuring found sounds, live tracks, tape loops, hand-held cassette recordings and multi-track studio works by various Swans incarnations—all digitally manipulated, molested, collaged and compiled into a whole that transcends its parts by devouring and eradicating them. Swans mainstays Michael Gira and Jarboe have announced that this will be Swans' final studio album, and that after a farewell tour this spring, the 15-year old band will be... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
METROLAND, Albany, NY | J. Eric Smitha whole that transcends its parts by devouring and eradicating themSoundtracks for the Blind is a two-disc set featuring found sounds, live tracks, tape loops, hand-held cassette recordings and multi-track studio works by various Swans incarnations—all digitally manipulated, molested, collaged and compiled into a whole that transcends its parts by devouring and eradicating them. Swans mainstays Michael Gira and Jarboe have announced that this will be Swans' final studio album, and that after a farewell tour this spring, the 15-year old band will be... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
Sound Views Subterranean Music & Culture | Chesley H.it's something of a masterpieceThematic and nonbattering yet still penetratingly eerie sound, from these veteran noise minstrels. It's a two CD set, released on the eve of their supposedly final tour, and yes, it's something of a masterpiece. Repeating melodies, twisted through tangles of effects and grandiose drama, weave a creepy epic that follows through from beginning to end, occasionally with vocals, often without. A few tracks feature samples of a phlegmy voiced man talking about some order of sordid exploit, while... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
Lumpe Housea disturbing zenith of every good and bad idea the Swans have embraced throughout their long careerAt least 15 torturous years of experience and idea have been distilled into a 2 CD set heavy with delicate melodies and apology, creating a disturbing zenith of every good and bad idea the Swans have embraced throughout their long No New York career. Pieces of conversation, crude and also plaintive vocals by Jarboe, songs more appropriate for World of Skin albums, Gira's poetry, soft instrumental interludes, struggling parts of curiosities culminate in... Read more...

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