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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......
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Wall of Sound leaving meaning. Review
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https://wallofsoundau.com/2019/10/29/swans-leaving-meaning-album-review/ SWANS – Leaving MeaningReleased: October 25th, 2019 Swans lineup Michael Gira | Vocals, Guitars Leaving Meaning marks the 15th studio album of SWANS’ long and incredibly diverse discography, the first album since frontman Michael Gira formally dissolved the most recent lineup of the band in favour of a revolving door of handpicked musicians. In typical SWANS style, Leaving Meaning is a departure from the orgasmic climax-oriented post-rock of their recent trilogy of albums (The Seer, To Be Kind, and The Glowing Man). Instead, Gira has revisited (intentionally or otherwise) a number of sounds familiar to both Swans earlier material and those familiar with his side project Angels of Light. Fans will likely bicker about where the influences on Leaving Meaning came from. Some will compare its gothic folk elements to the highly underrated Burning World, others will say that it takes the religious themes of Children of God and splices them with the spiritual and post-rock elements of White Light From the Mouth of Infinity, while some will claim that this is merely a SWANS flavoured Angels of Light record (alongside an infinitude of other combinations and comparisons). All of these perspectives and comparisons are true to some degree, and it is effectively impossible to talk about this album without referencing SWANS earlier material. This is easily the bands most metatextual album since Soundtracks for the Blind, which......