Swans
 

Was wondering which swans albums you guys liked? i way like filth as a whole album but i think a lot of their later stuff is only carried by the odd stand out track... also anyone else had difficulty getting friends into them... when i put filth on people get a little scared :(

There can be only one - "Cop":

argh i dont have that... i have
filth/body to body job to job
the burning world
the great annihilator
swans are dead
various failures
world of skin
and
white light from the mouth of infinity

i also have the latest angels of light lp which is pretty good if a little dull at points

is it online anywhere?

i love love love filth. i love love love cop. i love love love the young god ep.


early swans was the best. crushingly loud and abrasive post punk post industrial noise minimal hypnotic and did i mention loud? i really like the comparison jonathon kane drew between howlin wolf and early swans. how both have music based around a single simple riff, and then played repatedly to create a hypnotic, and in the swans case, crushing, effect. subsequently gira is a big wolf fan.

the so called pigfucker bands in the 80s is very interesting to me. i mean, the american underground at that time was mainly composed of more pop oriented college rock bands, and then the hardcore bands who just crankd up the punk format to 1000. but the early 80s american noise rock bands came out of no where. technically they were post punk bands, because thay would not have existed had punk not already happened. in sound thet were more related to no wave, in that they had higher artistic aspirations as well as operated in atonality, noise, and dissonance. but at the same time, they worked as punk bnds, networking, touring the country in vans, and totally lived the diy aesthetic. and because of this, they were punk bands, and co existed with hardcore, even sharing labels and stages with the hardcore bands. of course the bands im talking about are sonic youth, swans, scratch acid, big black, the buttholes, and pussy galore. these bands in retrospect probably proved to be the most influential.


jesus, im rambling. sorry folks. ive been popping percs like juju beans since i got out of the hospital on saturday, im a mess. swans rule.

nah thats all good stuff... i hadn't thought of the howling wolf comparison

me niether, jonathon kane did

Children of God is their best in my book.

The tempo of all that loudness is always a bit too knocky/scattered/jagged for me. BANG........BANG . BANG . CLANG ! CLANGCLANG !
However anything loud is perfectly spliced with the deliicate tracks on Children of God. Such as....having In My Garden follow New Mind is absolutely breathtaking and wouldnt be so as nearly if it was just with a bunch of other slower breathy songs,
And, most of the songs at the end are hypnotic. The style just suits me better I suppose .

"FLEX YOUR MUSSSSSCCCLLLLLLLEEEEESSSSSSSS"

i did not need to see that ^^^^

cop is a brilliant record

Yes, yes, and double yes. That one^

sorry i put filth on and got a little carried away:o

kill the child is my favourite swans record
although the four for one of cop/young god/greed/holy money is pretty great.

You kidding? Noone mentioned Soundtracks for the Blind? It's stupendous and hasn't dated like the early stuff. Godspeed should have tried to buy up all the other copies of that record after they appropriated the whole thing.

yes, one of my favorite bands, i pretty much haven't heard a bad swans album, but i have heard some so so ones.

Filth is amazing.

Isn't soundtracks of the blind a compilation, though? And it's got the atrocious "black eyed dog".

WHITE LIGHT FROM THE MOUTH OF INFINITY is by far my favorite.

I wouldnt be surprised if Cop/Young God/Greed/Holy Money was what dug the channel tunnel, so relentlessly punishing it be

chunnel?

Not right now thanks, im busy

I was about to start a new Swans thread but decided instead to use the "search" function for once.

Just got done listening to VARIOUS FAILURES (haven't listened in a while), instead of going to class....... and it dawned on me how much I truly love Swans. They're like a more talented, less smarmy Dead Can Dance. (Rather, Dead Can Dance are a less talented, more smarmy Swans).

Their CHILDREN OF GOD thru SOUNDTRACKS FOR THE BLIND period (including their WORLD OF SKIN releases) seriously just blow me away every time I pop one of them in. I need to get around to collecting the rest of the reissues/compilations that Gira put out on Young God Records in the last several years.

I've read through the rest of this thread and most people just seemed to enjoy the earlier stuff, with not much to say about the later periods.

Anyone else as hard for THE GREAT ANNIHILATOR as me?

Good threadsurrection.

Swans are one of those bands that make me wonder why no-one else thinks to make music like they do. It's funny how they're massively influential on doom. I've have a few pretentious epiphanies revolving around sexual trangression and repetition involving Swans. They're that sort of band.

Yeah man Great Annihilator their peak for me

Woooo! i´m new here, so Hi!

Oh, and yes swans are great.

Swans are one of thee greatest bands, and i actually think they peaked in the end with soundtracks for the blind and the swans are dead live album. There are some filler, but the Sound and Helpless Child are their best work. Epic stuff!

So, any Angels of light fans here? I think the latest album is über excellent! their best album, and maybe my favorite 2007 album. I think using akron/family as a backing band really works well. Gives me sort of Dylan and the Band vibes. You know, outstanding songwriter/poet backed by great musicians. joy

I'm not that wild about the more recent Angels of Light stuff. Ever since Akron / Family took over as backing band, I think the returns have been diminishing. Getting mixed up with all that "freak folk" lot has to be one of the worst things that ever happened to Michael Gira, in my opinion.

As musch as I love the old sludgy swans sound (old and new) , I think the lighter, more catchy songs actually suits him really well. What i love about Gira is that his records always sounds so familiar and yet refreshingly new a the same time.

on a side note i´m not really into the freak folk thing, but think akron/family is good! What the fuck is freak folk anyway? That devandre dude is annoying, is he freak folk or just neofolk? :cool:

Angels of Light were brilliant for the first four albums - I almost prefer that stuff to quite a lot of Swans - it was just when MG disbanded that lineup and replaced them with Akron/Family that I think it went bad.

This we can agree on :)

aol's we are him is wonderful.

i have this great album...some lyrics are weird, but i love it.
my favourite is "Seal It Over" - "a great mad noisy beat from hell"

I have yet to hear much of anything from Angels of Light :(

I've only heard random smatterings of Jarboe's recent stuff as well...

What I listened to of the collaboration between Neurosis and her was pleasant enough... I should probably give that whole disc a shot.

I love the recent Angels Of Light stuff, but it should please people around here that Gira isn't working with them anymore. I don't know if that means he's not doing Angels Of Light anymore or if he's getting new musicians or what...

Woah - I didn't know that. I think I'm probably the only one who'll be especially pleased about that, most people will probably be fairly ambivalent. I hope it's the beginning of a new Gira era though, I'd like to be able to be excited about the prospect of new stuff from him again.

His solo gigs are unfailingly brilliant.

Soundtracks for the Blind, Body to Body, Job to Job, The Great Annihilator, White Light from the Mouth of Infinity, andHoly Money are probably my top five favourite Swans studio albums. Body to Body... almost doesn't qualify, though.

As for live albums, which are a completely different affair, I'd go for either Swans are Dead or Public Castration is a Good Idea, followed by Feel Good Now.

I really enjoy Michael Gira and Jarboe's post-Swans material, and I admit that I enjoy some of it more than a few Swans albums. Anhedoniac and the first three Angels of Light albums in particular are exceptional.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature...his-own-words/

There's the link, he is definitely not working with Akron again. Although he didn't seem to know for sure if he was going to continue the Angels or not. This was a year ago I think, so it may've changed.

One final note...

Norman Westberg was sooo fucking hot in his hey-day.

i'm working my way towards later swans, to be honest, i'm enjoying every album and shit starting from prtty much the start.

Either way, i´m pretty sure a) he is not going to stop making records and b) they are gonna be great

I found Michael Gira's book "The Consumer", signed, in a Charity shop the other day for £3.50.
Has anyone got it, is it worth picking up for that money (bearing in mind i dont have much and im not really a hardcore Swans fan)? The signature just said "thanks Charlie" or something like that, nothing unremarkable.

edit; i didnt buy it, obviously, however if i had i might have been able to impress the inconceivably beautiful girl opposite me on the tube who was reading Thomas Pynchon. Maybe *sighs*