PRESS
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Live Review: Swans, Warehouse 34, Newcastle | The Shields Gazette
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ATTRACTING acclaim and interest like never before, Michael Gira and Swans’ reformation surely ranks among the most spectacular musical successes of recent times. That rejuvenation was on full display before both old heads and new converts on Friday at Warehouse 34, on a night when classic material was generally overlooked in favour of new opuses - particularly from phenomenal new album To Be Kind. Challenging, uncompromising and notoriously loud, the past three decades have seen the New Yorkers’ live shows become a thing of legend, and indeed their sensory assault can leave you feeling like you’ve been smashed head-on by a double-decker bus. It is, however, a controlled battering, harnessed by a group of terrifically proficient and creative musicians who performed their roles spot-on throughout, even amid some of the most chaotic, rip-roaring pieces imaginable. That much was apparent before Gira even entered the fray, as the six-piece - led by hairy, bare-chested percussionist Thor Harris - emerged one-by-one in a devastating, droning build-up which lasted the best part of 10 minutes. This was very much a sign of things to come, with the subsequent two-hour set yielding a grand total of seven songs, each characterised by overwhelming sonic......
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Michael Gira – Arcadia Series at St John’s Church, London | The Line of Best Fit
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Forming part of a series that sees New York’s experimental champion William Basinski pay homage to his infamous Arcadia Studio with specially curated events around London, Michael Gira performed an evening of darkly unrelenting no-wave folk at Hackney’s St John’s Church.Perhaps the father of American post-industrial rock as lead singer of Swans, Gira was a natural choice for the unique collaboration that was spearheaded by organisation Art Assembly. Historically proven to be at the forefront of leftfield music, his growling and direct approach to his solo work was only amplified by heavenly acoustics of the vast well-chosen venue.Ensuring the Arcadia ethos of providing a platform for new artists edging into the experimental scene was faithfully acknowledged, the handpicked line up also featured newcomer Aino Tytti alongside an atmospheric set from Basinski himself. Having embraced a more modernist approach to things, both Tytti and Basinski enlisted the help of laptops to compose swirling ethereal soundscapes that score the stuff of hallucinogenic dreams.As reality melted away to meditation, Tytti’s set featured field recordings from the everyday peppered amongst heaving masses of intricate instrumentation. In comparison from the seemingly freeform composition of Tytti’s work, Basinski showcased more structured material from his impending......
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Michael Gira @ Church of St John, London | Bearded Magazine
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Michael Gira // William Basinski @ Church of St John, London A mesmeric show from two of NYCs most revered avant garde composers As London begins what might be a fleeting early summertime and a gorgeous sunset descends over the office blocks and vibrant streets of east London, an evening with two of New York’s more respected explorers of space and noise within music may not seem like an ideal soundtrack to the warm breeze and orange skies outside but as we wander into the Church of St John in Hackney any thoughts of sunshine fade as lights dim and the music starts.First to take the small stage is William Basinski. Best known for his Disintegration Loops project which saw the woozy atmospherics of decaying audio provide a sonic backdrop to the tragic events of 9/11 unfolding in front of the video camera on the roof of his Brooklyn Apartment. It was the resulting 74 minutes that saw Basinski’s composition inducted into the 9/11 Memorial Museum as a harrowing document of one the most tragic days of the 21st century. It’s also Basinski who is curating this series of London tributes to Arcadia, the Brooklyn art-space that became the hub for performance art......
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Freq Live Review | M. Gira Solo in France
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Michael Gira/Ulan Bator (live at les Abattoirs) Bourgoin-Jallieu1 March 2014 Tonight’s show at les Abattoirs provides a chance forMichael Gira to share a stage with Ulan Bator, a band he worked with on the Ego:Echo album in 2000. The venue is an unusual one, sat on the corner of a roundabout on the outskirts of a small town on the road to Grenoble from Lyon. Taking place on one of the busy weekends in the sprawling school holidays (when it seems like the whole of France goes on co-ordinated trips to the Alps with subsequent lengthy tailbacks along the autoroutes into the mountains) means that – alongside the supposed distance from the city centre – that, for a Saturday night, the venue is unfortunately not very busy at all. Undaunted, Ulan Bator take the stage and commence a live soundtrack to Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel‘s Un Chien Andalou which matches the surrealism on screen with music which follows a similar symbolic trajectory into the depths of the human psyche. Opening with a hissing intake and exhalation of breath as Buñuel strops his razor under scudding moonlit clouds, the band crash in with full force and vigour as the infamous and still-disturbing eyeball-slicing scene flickers into goo-dripping view. It’s a cinematic tour de force which......
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Swans Live Review at Aberdeen Lemon Tree | The Courier UK
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“I kind of got it for the first five or 10 minutes but after half an hour I was puggled,” the doorman said after Swans had been on stage for almost two hours. The feeling that Sunday’s gig was a long shift was shared by a concerned member of the public, who got out of his car in front of the Lemon Tree and asked “how much longer has this got to go on?” “I was told it would be finished by 11,” he half-implored, indicating with his watch that it was 11.40pm. But for most of the people who had chosen to be inside the venue, door and box office staff aside, time had crystallised. An American monster was waking up in there. And all but the most heartless observers would sympathise with the man outside and the wincing staff, while wondering how long it’s been since the football stadium up the road generated this much sound. A New Firm derby would come close, but not quite, to a band touring the critically-acclaimed album To Be Kind. And who had the idea of bringing north New York’s longest-lived proponents of dissonant, atonal rock – No Wave as it was......