PRESS

SWANS’ MICHAEL GIRA SOUNDS OFF (Electronic Beats)
Swans frontman Michael Gira sounds off on electronic music's inherent flaws, his time in Israeli jail, and cosmic unity in an interview with A.J. Samuels. BY A.J. SAMUELS Swans frontman Michael Gira sounds off on electronic music’s inherent flaws, spending time in Israeli jail, and his violent past in an interview with A.J. Samuels. Since reforming in 2010, New York noise-rockers Swans have experienced something of a renaissance. But unlike the resurrected projects of so many rock contemporaries, the group surrounding songwriter Michael Gira has lost exactly none of its... Read more...
Swans live in Shanghai
Photo gallery from Smart Shanghai Read more...
Swans wing in for concerts to support new album To Be Kind (Sydney Morning Herald)
Twenty minutes into Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture, the epic 34-minute track on Swans' latest album, To Be Kind, Michael Gira shouts loudly 'Toussaint! Toussaint!', invoking the name of Toussaint L'Ouverture, leader of the 18th century slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). Gira demurs on whether there's a deeper resonance between the rebellion led by Toussaint L'Ouverture's and his own iconoclastic, occasionally confrontational musical style. The thematic context for Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture, Gira says, arose almost inadvertently.   Conceived originally as the extension of The Seer, the title track to Swans' 2012 album, Gira "needed some... Read more...
Michael Gira on Swans, religion and the hubris of Matthew Barney (The Guardian)
The Swans frontman on why performing is like long-distance running: ‘You keep pushing and pushing and finally you break through into something else’ On stage, Michael Gira’s body is barely able to contain his energy. In person, he is all amiability, his voice sweet, his manner courteous. Not what you would expect from the frontman of the Swans, one of the most confrontational bands to emerge from the No Wave post-punk 1980s in New York City. With their penchant for experiment and their industrial, take-no-prisoners tonality, the band inspired the... Read more...
Filth #22 on The Quietus 2014 Top Reissues of the year
http://thequietus.com/articles/16854-reissues-compilations-mixes-of-the-year-2014 Read more...
To Be Kind # 3 in Wire magazine's 50 Albums of the Year
Read more...
The Best Fit Fifty Essential Albums of 2014
Swans - To Be Kindhttp://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/articles/top-fifty-albums-2014Label: MuteReleased: MayOriginal Review by: Sam KrissTo Be Kind sounds alternately like a derailing freight train, a spreading wave of nuclear obliteration, the scream at the end of the world, and the chilling calm afterwards – but for all that, it might be the most accessible Swans album yet. A few moments might even qualify as singalong road trip anthems (albeit anthems best suited for a road trip directly off a cliff).It’s worth pointing out that Michael Gira turned sixty this year. However, Swans are as... Read more...
The Quietus - 2014 Albums of the Year
To Be Kind #3 "'I love you!' reads Michael Gira's address to his listeners, signing off the note announcing the release of Swans' thirteenth studio album. The open warmth of the sentiment might contrast with their agonisingly intense early music, but it captures the most striking aspect of this latest phase of his group's life cycle - its generosity. After a few seconds of near-silence - save filigree-fine electronic tones lingering in the air, eddying gracefully upward like sunlit dust motes caught in a draft - To Be Kind's centrepiece... Read more...
Entertainment.ie Album Review: Swans - 'To Be Kind'
Album Review: Swans - 'To Be Kind' Who could have seen this coming? Thirty two years since they first emerged as the enfants terribles of the New York music scene, Swans have just delivered the year's most uncompromising, thundering and blindingly brilliant album so far. Nothing even comes close to this; To Be Kind is two hours of music of gut-wrenching intensity, a series of never-ending peaks that take the rudiments of rock music and summons up something that is strikingly original. With To Be Kind, Michael Gira and his... Read more...
Uncut: To Be Kind #18 in Albums of the Year
Read more...

NEWS

MORE >>