PRESS
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Tiny Mix Tapes Glowing Man Review
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SwansThe Glowing Manby SIMON CHANDLERhttp://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/swans-glowing-man Tiny Mix Tapes was thrown into something of a behind-the-scenes tizzy last month when it emerged that Beyoncé, that unimpeachable icon of feminine empowerment and liberation, was reportedly making more than a few bucks out of female sweatshop labor in Sri Lanka. Given that we’d joined the rest of the Free World in praising her latest album to the hilt, this news caused something of a stir in our “office,” re-confronting us with the age-old question of whether we can or should divorce ourselves from the political and ethical ramifications of an artist’s life when appreciating their art. In Beyoncé’s case, this isn’t perhaps a difficult question to answer, if only because Bey had already brought politics and ethics into her work by using a narrative of (female/black) manumission to brand and sell it. That said, when it comes to Michael Gira and theaccusation he faced in February of raping fellow musician Larkin Grimm, the case isn’t so clear-cut. This isn’t simply because, unlike Beyoncé, Gira hasn’t made a career on the back of an image that would be bluntly contradicted by his alleged evil, but because this evil is indeed still alleged. We are, therefore,......
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Consequence Of Sound Glowing Man Review
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Swans - The Glowing ManThis incarnation of Michael Gira's band attempts to come to some sort of peaceBY SEAN BARRYhttp://consequenceofsound.net/2016/06/album-review-swans-the-glowing-man/Swans take their time. Their music reflects a unique patience and resilience that sets them apart from other experimental groups. Their history, too, is just as vast, spanning 34 years, 14 albums, and several stylistic and lineup shifts to account for it. Frontman Michael Girahas remained the constant guide throughout it all. The band’s current incarnation (comprising Gira, Christoph Hahn, Thor Harris, Christopher Pravdica, Phil Puleo, and Norman Westberg) arrived on 2010’s My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To the Sky, but found a more singular approach with 2012’s The Seer. From that immense record stemmed a sort of epic trilogy with 2014’s To Be Kind as its greater sequel and now The Glowing Man as the grand finale in more ways than one. Last summer, Gira announced that this album would be the last one recorded with the current incarnation of the band. Appropriately, the final track of The Glowing Man is called “Finally Peace”, seemingly bringing closure to a trilogy of albums that have so concisely and abstractly explored the human psyche in all its egotistic glory......
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AV Club Glowing Man Review
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With The Glowing Man, Michael Gira caps off Swans’ golden age of explorationBy Kevin Warwickhttp://www.avclub.com/review/glowing-man-michael-gira-caps-swans-golden-age-exp-238074 On stage the normally stoic, meditative Michael Gira performs as a sort of mad conductor, gyrating and flailing with what’s to be perceived as the primal, cathartic release of Swans’ music. Omniscient crescendos pile one atop the other as Gira’s possessed body movements often work independently of a track’s overall thrum. The whole production borders on performance art, and has only been honed by the collective’s recent trio of records. Beginning with 2012’s statement The Seer, and followed by 2014’s To Be Kind, Gira—who’s been embroiled in controversy over rape allegations made by singer-songwriter Larkin Grimm—has seemed increasingly enamored with the potential of an album’s magnificence. The triple-LP opuses of ambient drone and noise-rock experimentation are meant to swallow music venues like a snake devours a mouse, and send small furry animals cowering into the corners of apartments.The Glowing Man is spun as the final record for this lineup of Swans—which was rebooted by Gira in 2010 with My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky—and by the time you do finally reach the sunsetting closer “Finally, Peace,” you’ll feel obliged to......
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Metro 4* Review
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The Arts Desk Glowing Man Review
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Swans – The Glowing ManSwans' latest line-up bows out with yet another career bestby Guy Oddyhttp://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/cd-swans-%E2%80%93-glowing-man The Glowing Man may be the declared final album from Swans’ present line-up, but it is certainly no whimpering exit. On the contrary, it is a thing of intense and magnificent beauty that doesn’t once let up for over two hours – despite several tracks that clock in at well over 20 minutes long. Opaque lyrics and stirring primal music that taps directly into the soul are again the order of the day for Swans. Moving from the Pink Floyd-esque dreamy but dark psychedelia of “Cloud of Forgetting” and “Cloud of Unknowing”, Michael Gira’s crew take in the menacing Gothic country blues of “People Like Us” and a reimagining of Sonic Youth’s “The World Looks Red” (whose lyrics Gira had written in 1982) from Confusion Is Sex with call-and-response vocals and backed by an eerie choir. And that only covers the first disc. If anything, the second half of The Glowing Man ups the ante with the epic “Frankie M” and the dark folk of “When Will I Return?”, before fading out with the almost redemptive and uplifting strum-along of “Finally Peace”. It is......