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WRBB leaving meaning. Review
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http://www.wrbbradio.org/2019/11/01/the-new-swans-album-is-an-enlightening-experience/ Swans have been at the forefront of experimental music for a long time, largely due to the ability of Michael Gira, founder and lone continuous member, to effortlessly evolve the band’s sound. What began as a revolutionary-yet-incoherent wall of monotonous sludge on Swans’ 1983 debut Filth soon developed into melodious, folk-inspired gothic rock with their 1991 release White Light from the Mouth of Infinity. This initial evolution would see its end with a turn to atmospheric post-rock in 1996’s Soundtracks for the Blind. After the release of the acclaimed live album, Swans are Dead, Swans went silent for over ten years. Gira maintained his presence in the music scene under the moniker “Angels of Light” during this time, but his sound in this project was focused primarily on melancholic folk. The year is 2010. It has been nearly 15 years since the release of Swans’ Soundtracks for the Blind, an album now considered by many to be one of the greatest albums of all time. Michael Gira is 56 years old, and it’s pretty safe to say that the experimental trip that was once Swans is effectively defunct. Suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, Gira returns to the Swans name, and in the next six years,......
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Exclaim leaving meaning. Review
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http://exclaim.ca/music/article/swans-leaving_meaning By Max Morin Published Oct 30, 2019 7/10 There's only one rule when it comes to Swans — don't be conventional. The World's Strangest Band has existed on the outer fringes of the music scene for almost 40 years now, held together by the singular vision of Michael Gira and his revolving cult of like-minded maniacs. The Glowing Man was meant to be a final send-off, and its followup, Leaving Meaning, does feel like something of an epilogue for a bizarre career. In true Swans fashion, Leaving Meaning breaks all the rules, this time by going softer then anyone expected. Trimmed down and constrained, the longest track clocks in at a measly 12 minutes, a step back from the quarter-to-half-hour epics Gira has been writing for the past decade. Some songs stick to the usual anarchic ideas, "The Hanging Man" being a tasty cut worthy of inclusion on any forthcoming Best Of, but there are also introspective nightmare-lullabies like "Annaline," "Amnesia" and "Cathedrals of Heaven." Even in the moments when Swans descend into their trademark madness, it's with a placid, laidback feeling, as opposed to the nuclear musical meltdown of To Be Kind or The Seer (two of the best experimental albums of all time, for new listeners). Easygoing suits Gira. There could be......
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X-Press Mag leaving meaning. Review
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http://xpressmag.com.au/swans-leaving-meaning-gets-8-5-10/ Swansleaving meaning.Young God/Mute/Inertia 8.5/10 leaving meaning. is the album for end times we deserve in 2019. At a juncture where humanity is facing the realistic threat of extinction due to our own apathy around climate change, Swans’ 15th studio album foresees the human condition dissipating from history in an ethereal, beautiful and occasionally brutal swan song. With a largely new ensemble of musicians surrounding mainstay Michael Gira, the post-rock band turns away from the loud catharsis marked by their classic albums this decade The Seer and To Be Kind. This new sound employs diverse artists such as the piano-led meandering of The Necks on the record’s longest numbers, The Nub and the title track. Elsewhere, otherworldly electronic textures are provided by experimental producer Ben Frost, who offers less in the way of his solo records’ white noise tantrums, instead dressing the songs in some spectacular synthetic drones and gradual builds. In his recent interview with X-Press, Gira asserted leaving meaning. was by no means a concept album, but noted that he found himself “preoccupied with the notion of dissolving” and this experience is certainly a recurring theme. If not a concept record in its storytelling architecture, the 90-minute double LP leaves little doubt as to where Gira’s head......
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Pitchfork leaving meaning. Review
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https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/swans-leaving-meaning/ Michael Gira reshuffles his famous band’s lineup, inviting collaborators like the Necks and Ben Frost for a record that emphasizes elegiac beauty over raging catharsis. In 2017, Michael Gira dissolved Swans, putting an end to its most stable configuration in 35 years of the post-punk brutalists’ on-again, off-again existence. It wasn’t the first time that Gira had started over. He first did it in 1997, after a 15-year stretch of constant evolution in which Swans grew from atonal bloodlust worshippers (Filth) to blissed-out neo-folkies (The Burning World) to self-flagellating maximalists (The Great Annihilator). Titling the band’s posthumous 1998 live album Swans Are Dead was Gira’s way of laying a boulder on the lid of the tomb—at least until 2010, when, after a decade at the helm of his psych-folk project Angels of Light, he rolled back the stone and brought Swans back to life. Now, on his first Swans album since 2016’s The Glowing Man, Gira has reshuffled the deck once again. Players from throughout his various projects’ histories have rejoined him here, including several of Angels of Light’s core members (Christoph Hahn, Dana Schechter, Cassis Staudt, Larry Mullins) and pretty much the entire recent Swans lineup. As has frequently been the......
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Treble Zine leaving meaning. Review
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https://www.treblezine.com/reviews/swans-leaving-meaning-review/ Swans : Leaving Meaning. Label: Young God Released: 2019 by Wil Lewellyn My favorite version of Swans is the version that existed from 1987 to 1996 with Jarboe. It was hypnotic and dark, heavier than the Cure or Joy Divison. But when bandleader Michael Gira reformed Swans after a 14-year hiatus, I was happy to get whatever I was given. They had not really picked up where they left off, as much I tried to convince myself, which was most apparent by the time we got to To Be Kind. They began playing festivals, sandwiched between jam bands, and their audience changed from more industrial-strength goths to trust-fund hippies. I recall these growing pains to say their latest, Leaving Meaning., bridges the gap from Soundtracks for the Blind and My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. Its songs originally released in demo form as part of the crowdfunding-reward release What Is This?, Leaving Meaning. shows that the biggest difference between now and previous Swans efforts, aside from the lack of Jarboe, is Gira’s vocals. He reaches down and pulls out the richer, more resonant baritone that had been largely discarded in favor of more reckless ranting. Right from “Annaline,” you can hear his voice going back......