Swans -- The Seer

We got details. Did I mention Jarboe guests on the album?

SWANS - The Seer (YG45) 2xDigipack CD, 3xLP, Digital

(This album is also available as a special edition that includes a Swans Live DVD (at http://younggodrecords.com and live concerts only; view a trailer here: https://vimeo.com/42875372)

RELEASE DATE: August 28, 2012

Track Listing: 1.) Lunacy 2.) Mother of the World 3.) The Wolf 4.) The Seer 5.) The Seer Returns 6.) 93 Ave. B Blues 7.) The Daughter Brings the Water 8.) Song for a Warrior 9.) Avatar 10.) A Piece of the Sky 11.) The Apostate ...Total Running Time: approx. 2 hrs.

Recorded at Studio P4 and Andere Baustelle in Berlin, by Kevin McMahon and at Marcata Studio, Gardiner, NY, by Kevin McMahon. Additional recording at Trout Recording, Brooklyn, NY, engineer: Bryce Goggin. Mixed by Kevin McMahon at Marcata. Produced by Michael Gira.

NOTE FROM MICHAEL GIRA:

"The Seer took 30 years to make. It's the culmination of every previous Swans album as well as any other music I've ever made, been involved in or imagined. But it's unfinished, like the songs themselves. It's one frame in a reel. The frames blur, blend and will eventually fade.

The songs began on an acoustic guitar, then were fleshed out with (invaluable) help from my friends, then were further tortured and seduced in rehearsals, live and in the studio, and now they await further cannibalism and force-feeding as we prepare to perform some of them live, at which point they'll mutate further, endlessly, or perhaps be discarded for a while.

Despite what you might have heard or presumed, my quest is to spread light and joy through the world. My friends in Swans are all stellar men. Without them I'm a kitten, an infant. Our goal is the same: ecstasy! "

HOW THE SONGS CAME TO BE:

The songs The Seer, Ave. B Blues, Avatar, and The Apostate were developed organically as a group in rehearsals and on tour. They morphed constantly throughout the last series of Swans tours, and were captured and lovingly adorned in the studio. The remaining songs on the album were developed from the ground up in the studio with the participation and input of all the contributing musicians, guided by an invisible hand...

SWANS: Michael Gira - voice, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonica, casio, sounds; Norman Westberg - electric guitar, voice; Christoph Hahn - lap steel guitars; electric guitar, voice; Phil Puleo - drums, percussion, hammer dulcimer, voice; Thor Harris - drums, percussion, orchestral bells, hammer dulcimer, handmade violin thing, vibraphone, piano, clarinet, voice; Christopher Pravdica - bass guitar, voice, incredible handshake. Honorary Swan: Bill Rieflin - piano, organ, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, percussion, casio, synthesizer, bass guitar, voice, bird idea.... SPECIAL GUESTS: Karen O - lead vocal on Song for a Warrior (Karen appears courtesy Interscope Records); Al and Mimi of Low - co-vocals on Lunacy; Jarboe - backing vocals and voice collage on Piece of the Sky and backing vocals on The Seer Returns; Seth Olinsky, Miles Seaton, Dana Janssen (Akron/Family) - backing vocals on Piece of the Sky; Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella of Big Blood - accordion, vocals, dulcimer, guitar, piano and assorted other instruments on the Seer Returns; Sean Mackowiak (the grasshopper) - acoustic and electric mandolins, clarinet, various songs; Ben Frost - fire sounds (acoustic and synthetic) on Piece of the Sky; Iain Graham - bagpipes on The Seer ; Bruce Lamont - horns on The Seer; Bob Rutman - steel cello on The Seer; Cassis Staudt - accordion various songs; Eszter Balint - violin, various songs; Jane Scarpatoni - cello various songs; Kevin McMahon - additional drums on the Seer Returns, electric guitar, sounds on various songs; Bryce Goggin - piano on Song for a Warrior ;Stefan Rocke - contra bassoon on the Seer...

SWANS U.S. Tour Dates:

9/6/2012 Vancouver BC Venue

9/7/2012 Seattle WA Neumo's Crystal Ball Reading Room

9/8/2012 Portland OR Hawthorne Theater

9/9/2012 9/10/2012 San Francisco CA The Regency Grand Ballroom

9/11/2012 Los Angeles CA The Music Box

9/12/2012 Phoenix AZ Crescent Ballroom

9/14/2012 Austin TX La Zona Rosa

9/15/2012 Houston TX Fitzgerald's Upstairs

9/16/2012 Dallas TX Trees

9/18/2012 Oklahoma City OK ACM Performance Lab

9/19/2012 Kansas City MO Beaumont Club

9/20/2012 Lincoln NE Bourbon Theatre

9/21/2012 Minneapolis MN Fineline Music Cafe

9/22/2012 Milwaukee WI Shank Hall

9/24/2012 Denver CO Gothic Theater

Xiu Xiu is support on all shows.

http://younggodrecords.com/

"handmade violin thing," ha. Thor Harris rules. Plus, Al and Mimi!

woo

11 songs in 2 hours!

yay ben frost (wld love to see him perform w/ swans)

Ben Frost - fire sounds (acoustic and synthetic)

xp :)

Of course he had a song a couple of albums back called 'We Love You Michael Gira' or something amirite?

BTW, artwork:

http://cdn1.tinymixtapes.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/460_Width/news-12-05-swans.jpg

Just coming here to post that. Please God let it be 4REAL.

It's real, it was included with the PR mailouts.

Great artwork, I can't wait to hear this!

Time for walkies, Bastard

i love the all-star list of guest spots. it's like the swans-universe equivalent of some terrible charity benefit show where it ends up with eric clapton and neil young on stage, playing knockin' on heaven's door, just everyone is there, sheryl crow is there, everyone is sludging away. but i'm more optimistic in this context.

exciting! the nihilistically oppressed need a charity too!

Would an NYC date kill them? Damn.

i admire bill rieflin's ongoing quest to have one of the oddest drummer's resumes on the planet.

Would a Chicago show kill them?!

biggest deal in this new PR for me is the reappearance of Jarboe (!!!)

Whew.

This is one hell of a listen.

This is one hell of a listen.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, June 14, 2012 12:37 AM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

aaaaaah

I kept thinking "Christ how are they going to top thi--oh shit, they did."

Pardon the random wordspill of mine from FB but (slightly edited):

It's much more of a huge messy sprawl (I mean this positively), so as such its nearest counterpart would be _Soundtracks for the Blind_...._Father_ to me was the translation of then recent Angels of Light back into Swans-world if that makes sense, kind of a bridge into elegant extremity. This has plenty of said elegance and extremity but feels like it's exploding outward various directions, the shifts and changes can be even more abrupt or even more stretched out and slow burn. Three of the twelve tracks are twenty minutes long or longer (title track is half an hour). The final track (to which I listen right now) is one angry bastard of a thing.

Also they were not kidding at all about that music/instrument credit list. At ALL.

xpost dunno if i'll go that far yet. but maybe soon.

Yeah I want a second listen to make sure I have it all clearer -- it wasn't constant intensity (a good thing!) and its sprawl can mean meandering on their terms. But I like that, so there ya go. I honestly was surprised when what I thought was the ending was still about three quarters of an hour from it!

Why are the swans playing at one of the worst venues in town noooooooooo

I love Soundtracks, but I'll be honest and say that the concept of three three twenty minute+ songs sounds really exhausting.

Thankfully not in a row. (Title track/longest one is the middle of the album, the other two conclude it.)

I kinda stopped listening to Swans after I heard Public Castration, maybe it's time to pick em back up again?

maybe it's time to pick em back up again?

If you're expecting the mayhem of Filth/Cop/Greed to have returned in full glory, then no.
Swans have worked with a different kind of intensity from Children of God on, I'd say.
All pretty brilliant, by the way.

just prior the reunion shows i went back to the back cat and Children of God is THE one, imho - strikes a beautiful balance between early punishing swanscore and the later more songformy stuff. also, i was taught by one of the musicians on it.

"Keep practicing."

"But Mr. Gira it's been one chord for two hours."

"Time is money."

It was crazy to see that there were EIGHT musicians credited on Public Castration; sounds like Gira, a drummer, and a guy with possibly the meanest bass tone of all time...what the hell was everyone else doing??

I dig the brutality of the early stuff but I'm not sure how much more of that I can take. I think it would be funny if there was a camera on my face while I'm listening something like "Why Hide" or "Young God"; I'm guessing there'd be some pretty contorted frowns going on

Actually "Frown Squad" is a better name for this group than "Swans"

6 musicians on public castration - 2 drummers/bass/gtr/keyboard/vocals

you can watch the video version for further clarification

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqlX_9Q9ZrQ

^ my favorite long-play music video ever natch

i was there!

does it have the oiled body builder, who was the support act?

wow!

nope

so, this is not yet available for preorder, right?

new tour dates announced:

http://thequietus.com/articles/09190-swans-tour-uk-europe-us

looks like we're getting sir richard bishop as the support in glasgow, which is sweet, tho in the same venue last time round, poor old james blackshaw was drowned out by the audience (no such probs for swans lol)

man im so stoked to see swans, missed them last time

yeah don't miss 'em

unfortunately mr gira has booked swans in boston on my wedding anniversary, I don't think the missus will be down with earshattering postrock tent revival nonsense

http://facebook.com/profile.php?v=feed&id=13879391977

Only one old song, but they've never been a greatest hits kinda live band, so it doesn't really matter imo.

yeah but that old song is COWARD

i am so so so angry that i might have to pay $60 for these damn tickets.

Nothing new but while we wait:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm04wOP_gn4

http://www.pitchfork.com/news/47255-listen-to-a-10-minute-edit-of-swans-new-23-minute-song-the-apostate/

dry eyes
red with fear
insomnia
white light is here
the lamer has arrived
the lamer has my eye
the lamer has arrived
the lamer's in my eye

laaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMER
laaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMER

michael gira is a p groovy guy on stage, his goofy handflapping made the show for me. also he & the band stood & absorbed applause for like a full-five minutes after the set, people were pouring out of the venue but you could tell those who were still applauding were like "how much longer are we going to have to do this for?" but he just kept waving it in demanding more & more lol

... it looked like he was getting pissed off at thor for not understanding his conductor gestures

this ruled

http://thequietus.com/articles/10654-michael-gira-swans-bakers-dozen-favourite-albums

^ Gira's pick of his favourite albums (usual click-thru shenanigans I'm afraid). Nothing all that surprising there but he mentions the Stooges 'We Will Fall' by name and duh, OF COURSE! Why have I never noticed the similarity between that and the Swans before?

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/krakow81/8191238369/"; title="Swans at the Arches, Glasgow by Crimson Glow Photography, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8203/8191238369_af0ebe2397_z.jpg"; width="640" height="427" alt="Swans at the Arches, Glasgow"></a>

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8203/8191238369_af0ebe2397_z.jpg
Swans at the Arches, Glasgow by Crimson Glow Photography, on Flickr

that crimson glow dude is pretty good at takin' pictures.

http://signup.koko.uk.com/mouthtomouth/MouthtoMouth.jpg

I'm going to sound like a terrible person, but I had a ticket to see them in Glasgow last night but didnt go because I just wasnt in the mood at all.
I can listen to My Father and The Seer fine and really enjoy quite a number of bits but I havent really clicked with them, I felt this way at their last live show and I'm a bit jealous that I'm not fully immersed in it like most people seem to be.
I'd love to be loving this like I do with most of Gira's work, because many of the older records shook me to the core in a way I fear will never happen again with any art.

His solo show supporting Boredoms was really special to me, a lot of people seemed to act like it was nothing special and I even heard some bitchy fashiony comments as if to say "he's soooooo last decade", I couldnt believe I heard people saying that shit. He even apologized for his voice but it was stunning, I've been eager to hear the studio version of a certain song ever since that gig but dont know which album its on and scared it wont be as good as that live version.

I barely got into the Body Lovers/Body Haters thing at all.

For some reason I still love to buy loads of records but only go to one or two concerts a year now, am I alone in being obsessed with records but not that big into concerts? I seen some great ones but most of the time I'm lukewarm about it. I'm not that bothered about going to see even some of my favorite bands except a select few who I think might be great live. My next thing will probably be Mark Eitzel in febuary, unless I'm still not in the mood.

I've been looking around trying to find out what song that might have been at his solo/Boredoms gig, it was sang with that thing he does with his voice on "Mother Of The World" where he shakes his voice up and down at the end of each sentence, I think it may have been a really different version of "Nations" but I hope not, it was so harrowing and I'm scared it might be a really rare track I'll never find, a unique live interpretation of a song, or worse: a song never recorded (but I dont think so, because a friend told me all the songs were from previous albums).

http://www.setlist.fm/setlists/michael-gira-73d6fa59.html?page=5

^ the setlist for glasgow wasn't posted, but if you look at some of the earlier dates on that tour (e.g. rome or amsterdam), his set seems to be pretty constant. does that help?

Where's the Irish dates Gira mate?

Sort it out

i was fortunate to see swans on the greed / holy money and children of god tours and never again expected to experience another musical event that shook me in such a fundamental way, but the gig last night had precisely that effect. crushing. wondering if i will experience the like of that ever again?

Thankyou very very much Albert Crampus(NickB) for your help. It was, as I had thought earlier, "Nations" but different from the first early version I found on youtube, the version I saw was more like this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLCreWbag0k

...does the studio album version sound like this, with the crazy shaking vocals? Because that really got under my skin.

i was fortunate to see swans on the greed / holy money and children of god tours and never again expected to experience another musical event that shook me in such a fundamental way, but the gig last night had precisely that effect. crushing. wondering if i will experience the like of that ever again?

― stirmonster, Saturday, 17 November 2012 18:07 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wanted to hear what you and krakow and other glasgow attendees thought of the gig on friday. i was surprised by how much the sound had changed since the last time they played the arches - much heavier, thicker, overwhelming - at times, particularly in the very bass-heavy first half, it kind've reminded me of attending a really deep dub blues night, totally physical and body-targeted - my clothes were rippling, i could feel a crash barrier vibrating against my leg, saw bits of debris fall from the ceiling. at one point it felt like someone was pressing on the inside of my mouth. it was a sound you could really get lost in.

of course, the sound wasn't by any means perfect, but fair play to the arches for giving it a good old try (i'm guessing the power of the sound system is one of the reasons why gira favours it as a touring venue.) his vocals especially disappeared under the heavy bass-drums, tho i notice he's singing less these days, anyway - at times he still sounds as powerful as ever, but his voice is much less the focus.

the muddy sound in the arches has ruined many a gig for me in the past, but i think in this case it actually enhanced the bludgeoning. i was compelled to wear ear plugs which is something i (probably foolishly) rarely do and that muddied the sound even more but didn't take way from the brute physical force. as you mention, there was all sorts of debris falling from the ceiling which i have only ever see happen in there before when mungos hi fi had their massive dub sound system set up. i'm still undecided as to whether i missed the sheer power of gira's vocals which were the dominant sonic factor last time i saw them but it was good to have a different experience rather than it being more of the same. as they appear to have come full circle sound wise, i'm wondering where they can / will go from here?

i was back in there a few hours later to play a gig and there was some local techno act playing. several people i spoke to were saying how loud and powerful they were but i could only chuckle as in comparison with swans it was akin to hearing mantovani played through a small transistor radio.

I want thor to protect me in his big hammering arms

This might be the album where Swans finally clicks for me. Helps that I'm on a huge Scott Walker tip at the moment and this is the only thing that comes close.

Weird music/real-life sync-up. I've just moved house and was cycling to my girlfriend's house the other night and tried to take a short cut. I ended up getting slightly lost and ended up in a slightly dodgy neighbourhood, it was raining, dark, lots of dark underpasses and alleyways etc while "93 Ave. B Blues" unravels into my ears in all its creepy howling glory. I wouldn't normally be frightened of cycling through this area, but suddenly everything took on this haunted, gothic tinge and I was very very scared indeed.

how is this album so long? it zips by in a minute

Man, this is really good. I haven't kept up with Swans stuff since Great Annihilator, but I really like the balance of musical heaviness and the dramatic, uh "gothic" elements that always seemed overpowering to me on the Various Failures period recordings.

The Apostate is just so fucking huge when you listen to intently all the way through without letting yourself get distracted.

listen to it

alright, alright, i'm doing it already...

haha, i was just correcting my typo. but the request still stands :)

Wow. Gira posted the setlist for the forthcoming dates and it seems like The Seer is pretty much done with already:

1. to be kind
2. mother of the word intro/ bleeds into screen shot (new song)
3. coward
4. she loves us (this one still evolving, but finding it's shape)
5. The Seer / bleeds into toussaint louverture song, which then bleeds into new song oxygen... this last bit, "the seer" etc, is 1 1/2 hours or so in length....
we might insert the new song nathalie after she loves us, but that would make set reach to close to 3 hrs per night, and not sure that's advisable, for all concerned!

Oxygen isn't exactly new, as it was on "I Am Not Insane", but it'll be awesome to hear as it was really surprising it wasn't deemed worthy of 'full band' before now. I wish I was about for the shows.

I am seeing them tonight in Bristol and I am MAD EXCITED.

And I'm mad jealous 'cos I'm in the middle of being on holiday, otherwise I'd be there too.

Wear earplugs, i'm begging you.

oh yes certainly. I was wearing earplugs and it felt like I wasn't. I posted brief thoughts on the other Swans thread and I'm going to repost them here cuz I'm an egotist or something:

I saw them for the first time last night, p incredible. The first hour was the kind of brutal unrelenting assault I was expecting and great for it, but I suppose for the second hour my body gave up all resistance and I was 100% ~inside~ the sound, I felt like I could've gone on for hours more. My special blessings go to the maniacs not wearing earplugs (Gira included, I suppose his ears are like precisely but violently cut diamonds by now) and the shirtless guy next to me going crazy with his buddies.

(Mouth to Mouth was a really fun evening overall, if tough on the legs and back. Grouper and Xiu Xiu both beautiful and intense in their v different ways, Mercury Rev more enjoyable than I thought they'd be, if a bit corny and reliant on the same few tricks over and over. Didn't really get Ben Frost, sounded like little more than cheesy if massive EBM to me, but crowd reaction and twitter search suggest that I'm missing something there.)

Rob M, are you me in disguise? I'm gutted to be missing Bristol because I'm on holiday as well.

Am I you in disguise, Aldo? Depends where you are holidaying...

Kenya last week, Zanzibar this.

Legoland last week, Torquay this week. We must be different then.

T minus five minutes.

Listening to a recording of the Leeds gig, so fearsome, feels like I'm hearing some explosives testing going on from a safe distance.

We left after an hour and three quarters so they were still playing - I felt saturated and it wasn't like they had a big single to encore with; I didn't recognise any of the set - and the noise coming from the back of the building was phenomenal. Unrecognisable as a product of music.

Love the fact that one of his band was wearing a suit and another was wearing a nice cardigan. And then the drummers are just tattooed daemons.

Although actually only one had tattoos, the other was longhair and beard. Thor?

yeah Thor is the longhair

I was gonna skip this because the venue is literally my least favourite in the whole world and I figured that ~atmosphere~ is such a big part of Swans shows that it would suck the life out of it. however I got offered a free ticket y'day afternoon and am v glad I took it cos they owned. there wasn't an encore but there was a lot of grateful and charming bowing at the end

Yeah, Bristol O2 Academy fucking sucks. So sad they moved from Arnolfini but I guess that means more payola for the band.

Got an excellent view at the Concorde - just busy enough without feelin crowded. Vicky rarely gets to see more than a glimpse of the band at shows cos she's little, but we could see fine. Sound quality was insane - felt like the band was playing inside me at points.

Gira's just sent out news of the latest live/demo fundraiser release, Not Here Not Now:

http://shop.younggodrecords.com/not-here-not-now-handmade-release

Meantime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZloh0qVOLk

definitely got a copy of this. really excited

yeah I should probably buy mine ASAP, I think the last version of this (We Rose From Our Bed or whatever it was called) sold out pretty quickly (and was awesome).

this is really really good

got mine today, gonna throw it into the car for the next week or so o listening

Envious. (Would've loved to get this but the money's not to hand.)

See, this is the sort of value-added stuff I wish more acts would do.

Got my shipping notice this morning.

https://www.facebook.com/larkin.grimm.1/posts/1284036894947002