PRESS
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Michael Gira | Online Video
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The WireLive at the Adventures In Modern Music FestivalThe first in a series of videos documenting The Wire's Adventures In Modern Music festival held at The Empty Bottle in Chicago in September 03. Click here and go to "Web Exclusive" Quicktime Movie file here...
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Swans | Reviews
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ssmt-reviews.comAfter listening to Children of God, it was pretty obvious what direction the Swans were going inThe Burning World 1989 Uni Records Children of GodThat album showed a gentle, melodic (yet still very dark and depressing) side to the band that had only been hinted at very rarely on previous records. This record only continues further in that direction. See, this is considered by many to be the weak link in Swans' catalog, especially by Gira himself. This is the only album Swans had ever recorded for a major label and Gira came away from the experience a very, very bitter man. The production duties were in the hands of a certain Bill Laswell, who many believe were responsible for this record's over-produced, major label feel. But everyone seems to be forgetting one thing here: the songs. These songs are absolutely wonderful. Extremely melodic, dark, emotional, beautiful and very, very, catchy. Gira's singing has improved significantly, and his voice has taken on a sultry Nick Cave quality to it. It's very, very hard to believe that this is the same man who provided the yells and screams on such brutal, punishing albums as Cop and Filth. And JarboeÅ well, she......
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Michael Gira
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www.silbermedia.com Interview via email October 28, 2003 for QRD/The Broken FaceMichael Gira interview via email October 28, 2003 for QRD/The Broken Face I think everyone that knows me knows the name Michael Gira. I think a lot of my admiration for him is really caused by stumbling across his music at the right moment in my life. He gives me a lot of hope because though his early music deals with physical violence & self-hatred, he’s changed over the years & helped to guide me into a more realistic & hopeful view of the world. The last time I saw him perform I had a fever & hadn’t slept in two days & confessed to him that I loved him like a father & was proud of him & his new record TheAngels of Light’s Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home. The Angels, for those of you who haven’t paid attention, are a beautiful band. They’re kind of a proto-punk-americana band. They’re beautiful like a caged panther instead of like the sunrise. Which is the kind of beauty Gira has always had, untamed. QRD – Why did you have such an extreme instrumental line up change for the Angels of......
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Devendra Show in London
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NME/UK | by John MulveyReviewContrary to what he promised in NME the other week, there are no babies at Devendra Banhart's second London show. Instead, we're confronted by a starry-eyed hippy sat like a guru (his middle name is Obi, as in Wan Kenobi), playing guitar intricately and singing, "Hey there Mr Sexy Pig", through his teeth. He drinks from mysterious bottles, and scolds journailists present for not writing about singer Nick Drake when he was alive (Er, he died 29 years ago). Banhart, obviously, is a bit of a 'character', but he's also New York's best singer-songwriter since Jeff Buckley. He owe's debt to a bunch of psychodelic oldies from the late '60s, notably tragic, piercing singer, Karen Dalton. But Banhart's an original who plays his beautiful song's about animals, sex and babies in a kind of ecstatic trance. "I could take my little teeth out and show them a real good time", he promises. An exciting prospect, but surely just singing to them would be enough?...
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Angels of Light | Review
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ssmt-reviews.comMicheal Gira, has steered his angry innovations across genres and decadesNew Mother 1999 Young God Records New Mother is a debut album, but the rock beneath this church has seen kingdoms fall and weathered them. One of half of New York's pioneering art-punk outfit Swans (indeed more like a kingdom than simply a band), Micheal Gira, has steered his angry innovations across genres and decades emerged from the darkness with sixty minutes of sensitive, vivid and often gorgeous balladry. In other words, a twenty year veteran sounding more like an ambititous young upstart, an "easier" and less rocky Tom Waits. Truth be known, Gira may have had these intentions since the late 80s, or the mellowing out of Swans; "God Damn the Sun", from Swans' Various Failures retrospective is the closest to what would eventually become the Angels of Light. But where Swans generally espoused amelody, repetition and almost a disdain for colorful pop-flourishes, New Mother embraces them. The album's apex, "Angels of Light" also serves as a solid microcosm: a lone guitar line progressively becomes accompanied by counter-melodies and delicate instrumental layering until something of mini-stringed orchestra emerges at which point it stops abruptly. Then, enter Gira with a......