PRESS

Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
Melody Maker | Jonathan Selzerlike fragments from a world whose foundations are in the last stages of erosionSo this is it, the last album proper by my favourite, most fatalistic band, a band who could give rise to the most transcendent of feelings only because they'd detail their own limits with such meticulous care, a band who sensed such overwhelming destiny they were stricken by it. The first time I played a Swans record, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Listening to them now, ravaged, wretched, as terminal a... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
Columbus Guardian | Curtis Schieberdefies the easy pitfalls of the genreIt's all pretty hopeless, according to many poets since Baudelaire. That guiding axiom has been a powerful force in rock for a couple of decades. The stance—after more than a century—is surrounded by traps. Pretense, obviousness, and petty fashion await all but the most creative purveyors of the doom doctrine. Swans' "Soundtracks for the Blind" defies the easy pitfalls of the genre, calling, instead, for the listener's trust. The group's rhetoric purposely separates the doubters from the believers. After 15... Read more...
Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
Columbus Guardian | Curtis Schieberdefies the easy pitfalls of the genreIt's all pretty hopeless, according to many poets since Baudelaire. That guiding axiom has been a powerful force in rock for a couple of decades. The stance—after more than a century—is surrounded by traps. Pretense, obviousness, and petty fashion await all but the most creative purveyors of the doom doctrine. Swans' "Soundtracks for the Blind" defies the easy pitfalls of the genre, calling, instead, for the listener's trust. The group's rhetoric purposely separates the doubters from the believers. After 15... Read more...
Charlemagne Palestine
Amanita Records | Brian Duguidapproaches a piano like a climber approaches a mountain He does not play the instrument so much as he lets it test him: he starts each performance like an ascent, knowing that somewhere ahead there are the limits of the piano, and also the limits of him. It is entirely possible that he will reach neither, or both - when I saw him play in 1998 he finished the piece exhausted and the piano finished the piece with two of its strings at the lower end... Read more...
Charlemagne Palestine | Interview
EST Magazine | Brian Duguidone of minimalist music's unjustly neglected figuresLike Phill Niblock, Tony Conrad, Philip Corner or Yoshi Wada, Charlemagne Palestine (born plain Charles Martin in New York to Russian Jewish parents in 1947) is one of minimalist music's unjustly neglected figures, known to the lucky cognoscenti but perhaps too austere to survive the commercial crossover of late 70s minimalist music. This year, Robi Droli have reissued Charlemagne Palestine's long out-of-print Strumming Music (originally on Shandar in 1974), while Dutch label Barooni have reissued his Four Manifestations On Six... Read more...
Charlemagne Palestine
Amanita Records | Brian Duguidapproaches a piano like a climber approaches a mountain He does not play the instrument so much as he lets it test him: he starts each performance like an ascent, knowing that somewhere ahead there are the limits of the piano, and also the limits of him. It is entirely possible that he will reach neither, or both - when I saw him play in 1998 he finished the piece exhausted and the piano finished the piece with two of its strings at the lower end... Read more...
Lisa Germano | Review
Rolling Stone | Lorraine Ali What is Victoria's secret? 1996Excerpts from a Love Circus Lisa Germano makes music so beautifully tragic and depressing that it seems nearly fatal. When Germano – a former backing violinist for John Mellencamp and Bob Seger – became a solo artist, it wasn't the weepy moan of her instrument that touched a universal nerve but the resigned cadence in her voice and her self-deprecating lyrics. She represented all those girls who used to hear, "Hey, smile, it's not that bad," and instead of answering with a... Read more...
Lisa Germano | Review
Spin Magazine | Sia Michel She values mood and texture over structure 1996Excerpts from a Love Circus In one painful scene in Welcome to the Dollhouse, “grade-grubbing” Dawn wiener degrades herself as she stumbles through an oral report on dignity.  On Excerpts from a Love Circus, Lisa Germano proclaims “I suck dignity” like a card-carrying member of the Special People’s Club.  Dawn and Lisa are our sacrificial Wiener Dogs: They suck so we don't have to. The difference is, Dawn can’t help it; pushing 40, Germano rubs our noses in her... Read more...
Swans | Swans Related Projects | Review
Roadkilltwo extraordinary albumsM. Gira - Drainland Jarboe - Sacrificial Cake Let's get one thing straight. These LPs will not be bad. It is impossible for Gira to do anything remotely resembling a failure (apart from his immense song of the same name!). His solo offering should easily be a Swans LP on its own. The spacious almost choral backing is there in force, and the deep, deep vocals brood over the top. Some of the tracks seem to harken back to the more industrial era of Swans, particularly track 3,... Read more...
Swans / M. Gira | The Great Annihilator / Drainland | Review
Rolling StoneGreat Annihilator ***, Drainland ***A decade ago SWANS were a seminal noise band, a contemporary influence on Sonic Youth and a predecessor to Nine Inch Nails. But Swans' aggressively ugly music—loud, slow and monotonously grinding—combined with singer M. Gira's queasy lyric stew of sadistic sex and violence guaranteed a limited audience. Since then they've somehow perservered largely unheard, on the fringe's fringe. Even more surprising given their monotonic original sound they've evolved. The current Swans consist of Gira on vocals, guitar and miscellaneous sounds, and a woman named Jarboe... Read more...

NEWS

MORE >>

NEWSLETTER