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Rock and Roll Globe leaving meaning. Review & Interview
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https://rockandrollglobe.com/psychedelics/swans-leaving-meaning-interview/ Swans Mean Business The RNR Globe’s exclusive chat with Michael Gira on his longtime collective’s 15th LP Leaving Meaning October 21, 2019 Katherine Yeske Taylor Even though it’s 8:30 a.m., Swans frontman Michael Gira is impeccably articulate and polite when he calls from his home “somewhere in Pennsylvania.” He’s up this early because he soon needs to leave for the airport – he’s flying to Latvia, the first stop on a three-week solo tour across Eastern Europe. In the midst of that, on October 25, Swans will release their 15th studio album, Leaving Meaning (Young God Records), featuring a lengthy cast of collaborators, including guitarist Kristof Hahn (Les Hommes Sauvages), drummer/keyboardist Larry Mullins (Iggy Pop; Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds), and bassist Yoyo Röhm. The album is receiving excellent advance reviews for its densely textured soundscapes, so it’s likely to be the latest successful installment in Gira’s remarkably prolific and musically varied career. When Swans first emerged from New York City’s downtown scene in 1982, they were notorious for their sonic harshness, but over the ensuing decades Gira (the only constant member in the band’s ever-evolving lineup) has demonstrated a talent for writing quietly beautiful songs, as well. Throughout all of his work, though, Gira......
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Decibel Magazine leaving meaning. Review
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https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2019/10/23/exclusive-stream-the-new-swans-album-leaving-meaning/ Exclusive: Stream the new SWANS album “Leaving Meaning” October 23, 2019 Justin Norton When Decibel met with Swans founder/visionary Michael Gira in San Francisco last fall before a solo show he said new Swans music was coming after a three-year gap. A year later he’s lived up to the promise with the double album Leaving Meaning. “Leaving Meaning is the first Swans album to be released since I dissolved the lineup of musicians that constituted Swans from 2010 – 2017,” Gira says. “Swans is now comprised of a revolving cast of musicians, selected for both their musical and personal character, chosen according to what I intuit best suits the atmosphere in which I’d like to see the songs I’ve written presented. In collaboration with me, the musicians, through their personality, skill, and taste, contribute greatly to the arrangement of the material.” We are beyond excited to stream Leaving Meaning in advance of its October 25 release. Like the entirety of the Swans catalog, it is in some ways pointless to try to describe it. At this point in his career, Gira is as much conductor as songwriter, using every musician at his disposal to realize and ultimately present a personal vision. Swans is one of the few bands where lengths......
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Louder Than War leaving meaning. Review
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https://louderthanwar.com/swans-leaving-meaning-album-review/ Swans: leaving meaning. – album review By Simon Tucker - November 1, 2019 Swans: leaving meaning. Mute / Young God Records LP / CD / DL Available Now. Swans first album since main man Michael Gira disbanded the 2010 – 2017 line up sees Gira involve a clutch of collaborators to help him with his sonic mission. Simon Tucker reviews. From 2012’s The Seer – 2016’s The Glowing Man, Swans had a run of albums that were unique, pulvarising, ecstatic and darkly joyous. The music Michael Gira and his bandmates during that time seemed drenched in the dirt we walk on with ideas of reaching the stars…and many times they got to their destination. When Gira announced then that he was disbanding that line up it felt like the correct decision. This line up had taken that collective ideals and mission statements to its logical conclusion. So what would come next?? Well what would come next was ugly for Gira with the singer Larkin Grimm accusing him of rape. Gira denied the accusations and neither the case seems to have gone quiet. These accusations didn’t affect Swans gig ticket sales or that of that year’s album The Glowing Man. So where......
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Colorado Springs Independent leaving meaning. Review
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https://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/swans-michael-gira-goes-understated-on-new-album/Content?oid=20614340 Swans' Michael Gira goes understated on new album By Loring Wirbel Since Swans’ 1980s debut in the New York downtown scene, Michael Gira has woven the tough noise of the band’s early work with the orchestral flourish of his side projects. Beginning in the late ’90s, Swans released a series of double-CD, 90-minute epic works relying on the percussion of Thor Harris and declarative guitar of Norman Westberg. So how does Gira avoid “epic fatigue”? In Leaving Meaning (Young God Records), the seventh such double disc, he chooses quiet understatement with strings and synthesizers, though he doesn’t hesitate to shout and chant, or call on gongs and bass drums from Harris.Gira has been on a transcendentalism kick in the 21st century, and the last few Swans mega-works have augmented spirituality with an impressive array of guest artists. This album has a few visitors, such as members of The Necks, but the focus is on Gira’s own poetry, delivered in layers of mystery, with the 11-minute title track a particular standout. Many fans and detractors thought Swans would have disbanded long ago, but the surprise is how consistently Gira can go to the creative well and never come up dry....
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Tone Shift leaving meaning. Review
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https://toneshift.net/2019/11/07/leaving-meaning-by-swans/ Leaving Meaning by Swans BY SAMUEL GOFF ON NOVEMBER 7, 2019 Swans Leaving MeaningYoung God Records (LP/CD/DL) Few bands have successfully navigated through such a long history of stylistic changes, personnel upheavals and emotional shifts as Swans. It helps that now after so many eras and bands and genres head Swan boss Michael Gira is officially christening what we have known for decades. That Swans is not a band but an extension to the outside world of….Michael Gira. Gira closed out the latest chapter of Swans very successfully in 2017, recording a slew of challenging, epic albums featuring for once a pretty stable core of willing musicians. A real band of sorts. Starting with 2010’s My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky and ending with 2017’s The Glowing Man Gira shepherded a core lineup through some of the best, thought provoking albums yet in the Swans canon. About as far away sonically from Swans brutal, ugly beginnings these later era albums found Gira in role of astute avant- garde troubadour. For Leaving Meaning Gira is eschewing the idea of a “band” and curating an eclectic pool of musicians for each song with the musicians circling around Gira’s deceptively simple acoustic songs. If you think this would create an......