SWANS - To Be Kind 2CD (May 13, 2014) ft. St. Vincent, Cold Specks, Little Annie, Bill Rieflin and others

Anticipate!

http://pitchfork.com/news/53635-swans-announce-new-album-to-be-kind-featuring-st-vincent-michael-gira-announces-solo-tour/
http://pitchfork.com/news/53944-swans-announce-spring-tour-with-jenny-hval/

Review stream is up already apparently - any music journo types want to comment before they're allowed to? (haven't heard it myself, I're not an writer)

I still haven't found time to take in their last double album... glad the creative juices are flowing again, but damn!

The Seer was excellent - didn't feel like a long album at all, however I was hugely disappointed by the vinyl copy I owned because they rearranged the tracklisting and made many of the songs span multiple sides in a really illogical way. Not having Mother Of The World as second track makes no sense at all.

psyched about the tour, i have never managed to see swans or gira so i'm gonna try to see them this time around

yeah.. the sequencing of the vinyl version of The Seer was so unnecessary that if the new one is like that i'll likely not buy it....

listened to The Seer in its entirety this morning. didn't think i'd make it all the way through, but it's not an album you can just switch off without feeling the weight of what you're letting go of, so it kept on rolling. it's a freakishly impressive album.

really looking forward to the new songs.

This new song sounds like a cover of a discarded Man Man tune. Not good at all.

I like the distended blaring of the noise sections, at least.

what? this song is great, and totally un-Swans like

ok let's get through the whole song before posting. Not *totally* un-Swans like, but wow Gira just doesn't ever seem to get old.

you have listened to all 5 or 6 of the 70-minute-each angels of light albums, right? gira can definitely get old

I'm warming to the beat on a second listen; the shakers (if that's what they are) at the edge of the mix are pretty subtle.

so this is it, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2bMsYb9P-k

Yep; there's a download link here for convenience's sake: http://pitchfork.com/news/54441-swans-share-new-song-a-little-god-in-our-hands-six-part-art-for-new-album-to-be-kind/

i like it. the "horn noise" sections have a real melody, which helps. plus swans have an elevated status for me, since i only recently realized they aren't a "sounds so harsh and abrasive you can't possibly listen to them"-type of band.

omg the squealy synths + big band jazz horns at the end

tracklist:

http://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/t1.0-9/1899951_648528345195863_1553392184_n.jpg

oh, and track lengths are on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Be_Kind

1. Screen Shot - 8:04
2. Just a Little Boy (for Chester Burnett) - 12:39
3. A Little God in My Hands - 7:08
4. Bring the Sun / Toussaint L'Ouverture - 34:05
5. Some Things We Do - 5:09
6. She Loves Us - 17:00
7. Kirsten Supine - 10:32
8. Oxygen - 7:59
9. Nathalie Neal - 10:14
10.To Be Kind - 8:22

5:09 ? That better be a skit instead of a song

Philip Sherburne ‏@PhilipSherburne 8h -- Holy great gaping maw of the infinite, this new Swans album.

interested to hear this record.

interested in gaping maw of the infinite

sounds ... spacious.

"A Little God"... may be my favorite Swans song to date. Unbearably excited to hear this record.

Recently found out one of my friends plays on a few songs on this album, including "A Little God..." I'm happy for him but I still don't like the tune.

Pfork TV documentary on The Seer, 28 minutes or so:

http://pitchfork.com/tv/15-docs/573-swans-the-seer/

Song rules. It does sound way more Angels of Light. Which is good, I think! I prefer Gira when he's working with a more eclectic soundscape. It is weird to hear bleeping/sputtering synth washes in his music!!!

The album was kinda leaked by accident, apparently: http://shopify.audiosalad.com/player/?release_id=63&g_profile=virtuallabel.audiosalad.com
You can move the blue sections around & hear the complete songs, but not in one go. That requires more advanced ripping (which has also been done by the evil part of the internet).

"This wasn't really a leak, it was a fuckup on the website. Someone discovered you could glitch out the preview player and go past the 30 second mark for each song. That's why it's 96 instead of 196 or whatever. Whoever was behind the Young Gods' website uploaded full songs, not snippets, to the samples' section. Probably on purpose, thinking that no-one would try to access the direct streams."

meh, too much work, just gonna wait for my preorder in the mail

Those little washes of synth in the beginning of "A Little God..." remind me a bit of "Hamburger Lady" for some reason.

yeah having to listen to a leak of a double album in 96 kbps sounds awful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jSdTBGhDSg

Streaming:

http://www.npr.org/2014/05/04/308392426/first-listen-swans-to-be-kind

shit is that thor playing that hi-hat

Great interview with Gira at The Quietus

I was listening to every single one of the Swans albums in chronological order yesterday.

MG: Not The Burning World?

I, ah, listened to edited highlights of that (laughs)

MG: Edible turds! (laughs)

I know this has been said many times before, but the Quietus would be so much better if they just knew how to edit.

really solid album. not quite as dissonant as the seer but for being 2 hours long, it stays pretty damn engaging.

XP: I can't even work out what's supposed to be wrong with that tiny snippet from a 10,000 word feature above. You'll have to point out the egregious mistake I've made because I can't see it.

For each of those times I've replied: we can't afford to pay ourselves properly let alone employ a sub. If you want to donate some of your spare time - given that you're obviously the expert - to the cause, feel free to email me. We'd be glad of the help.

i thought it was one of the better interviews i've read lately fwiw

Thanks, I appreciate you saying that.

i don't get a chance to read it as much as i'd like, but the quietus is good.

You guys!

(Serious, thanks though - embattled to fuck with work at the moment. The reason why the stuff about editing really upsets me is that we're all aware of it but often there's often nothing we can do about it. On top of the second and third jobs we all do - something always gives in the production of it as you have to do your own editing. So if you're putting up a 10k word piece, and doing it past midnight, unless you're a robot, it's inevitable that there will be some stuff you're not happy with. And I'd love the luxury of editing it on screen the next day but I was at university lecturing just to get home to write another feature and then to build the next day's content for the site… not moaning because I love it, but some context in my defence…)

Fwiw, thought it was a great interview that went deeper than most, maybe even *because* it wasn't shortened or otherwise edited?

^^^

yeah that interview is great. quietus definitely is responsible for some of the better interviews around lately

this interview is good too. some overlap with john's interview.

http://www.wonderingsound.com/feature/swans-michael-gira-interview/

i enjoyed them both.

what a fucking great record

Awaiting the physical copy, it's on its way.

He's so... kind in these interviews!

me too xp

Listening to this now, enjoying it more than the other recent Swans stuff. Sonically it is exquisite. I only wish Gira didn't feel compelled to sing so much. The songs are mostly dense and propulsive enough to stand on their own. I feel the vocals were more effective with the slightly less dense sound of the older versions of the band. Gira clearly doesn't agree with me that "less is more" which is mostly a blessing but sometimes a curse! The 4th song on disc one has funny and marvelous tree-sawing percussion in the rubato section in the middle - way cool.

Still not really a fan of the drummer. He's a little too busy. I sorta long for the mechanical assembly-line precision of the older Swans stuff, but, in the final analysis, it doesn't matter too much. Love Thor's percussion punctuations to death. Ditto the warped lap-steel guitar guy, who is such a great foil for the equally demented and always tastefully understated Norman Westberg.

Oh man this record is just totally trance-inducing amazing awesomeness. Am I crazy for thinking they're a better band now than they were when they hung it up in '96 (and that this and the Seer are maybe their two best records end-to-end)? Or is that just a function of age, me getting less excited about music, music these days, fuck the kids kinda stuff? Could not be more excited for their next SF show.

I think it's different good rather than flat out better (keep in mind I am a major Jarboe freak and miss that dynamic the two had).

that stooges cover up above isn't a swans cover. it's a WoS cover.

everyone otm. listened for the first time yesterday, fascinating and absolutely overwhelming. on first blush, my favorite swans album, though that's not surprising as i was never a fan of versions 1 & 2. it is, perhaps, a bit surprising as i'm not generally a fan of starkly apocalypic americana, either, that fire & brimstone thing, country & blues slow-roasting over the pits of hell. perhaps that's an unfair association; gira & co are treading awfully strange territory here, might as reasonably link it in w/ comus and current 93. love the endless repetitions, scalding noise, "this happened" live feel and roomy recording, agree completely abt the off-mic shouting. dazzled by this passing moment (i think it's on "a little god") where the scurrilous noise guitar almost comes back in after the first blaze, but buts up against gira, retreats, feels like a living thing.

This is their Doors record.

I have this! I'm listening to it now! Yay!

This record is a lot more fun than The Seer (a great record but I still can't forgive them for fucking up the track order on the vinyl version. Unforgivable)

I'M JUST A LITTLE BOY!

xp yeah, put me in mind of the doors, too

I didn't think of that before but I can totally hear it now

This made the top 40

Billboard 200

#37 Swans - To Be Kind

amazing

thumbs up america

this one really seems to be more about repetition & grooves than sheer volumes of noise. means that i'm a little wiser to the progressions of the songs, can sync along for the ride as they funnel & pillage their way towards hysterical denouements.

i haven't heard this yet but man, that sounds perfect! i'm convinced now. i have been listening to "mother of the world" over and over (and over) for months and -- i like brutal swans too, but if i can listen to a song 3x/week from December through May of the following year without hating it, it must be graduated to the next level of songs.

i'm glad america thinks this record is groovy
that is (1) thing we are doing right

I'm not used to starting threads about hit parade chart topping material.

Well, it is Billboard not America's Top Forty. Still, that's kind of awesome.

also, it's not like that thing is adjusted for deflation or anything

Next thing you know, Swans will play Letterman, then SNL.

I think they should book them just for America's twitter reactions.

Tweens react to The Burning World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF_g9qGG90Q

^14 year old kid who keeps fixing his hair (don't watch, just listen)

This kid is awesome. Gira should hire him to hit something in the band.

It's not exactly letterman or snl, but they _are_ going to be playing a free outdoor show in Toronto, June 20. At Yonge & Dundas Square, which is a hilariously over-the-top shrine to advertising and shopping, beside the Eaton Centre. Huge video advertising screens everywhere. It's going to be even stranger than when the Stooges played there a few years back. I've never seen the Swans before, and am really looking forward to them in this environment.

LOOOOW VA CHUUUURE

É

saw them last nite, got this video of gira dancing on stage:

http://i.imgur.com/z8wqWtj.gif

I've cooled a bit on this album.

it's got some fun bits on it, but i think the Seer is ultimately a more engaging record which deserves its extended length whereas this feels a bit like i'm waiting for the bludgeoning repetitiveness to carry me from isle to isle.

how was the show?

I thought the show last night was pretty good, but I didn't stay to the very end. The downside of a band this intense is that you pretty much get the idea after an hour of it, which isn't to say I was bored but I did make the calculated decision that I would benefit more from going to bed than another 20 minutes of sweeeeeeeelllllsquuuuueeeegrowleerrrrrrrrrrrsssssss.

This current incarnation of Swans gives me a real Birthday-Party-all-grown-up-(wrong) vibe.

yah i think they played almost 2.5 hours?

2 songs then?

did they play "mother of the world" y/n?

I'm skipping the show this time around. The last one was excellent, but the setlist for this tour doesn't excite me at all.

who's still listening to this album?

I am, but I tend to put it on and it feels like it ends rather quickly considering its length.

so i like basically everything on this album, but 'oxygen' is a head above for me because it's bracing all the way through instead of making me sit through 10 minutes of buildup. i'm p uninitiated with swans: what should i check out next if i want the closest thing they do to straight ahead rock?

Cop

The Great Annihilator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_to_Body,_Job_to_Job

This I think of as Swans at their rocking-est, repetitious, disgsting-est, best!

I'd go w/Great Annihilator

een, have you heard The Seer yet though? Cos, to be fair it does the 10 minute build up thing a lot too but I think it's slightly more interesting minute-for-minute on the whole.

i was basically meditating the whole show and it was over before i knew it. there is buildup but the songs are very different and distinctive imo. i must note the bass player is handsome.

Saw 'em in July. Pretty mind blowing experience!

Caught them last night at Showbox in Seattle. The 45 minute gong build-up almost drove me mad, but enjoyed the rest. Those 15 minute one-note solos really put you in a mood.

have to agree with the 'meditative' feeling i had when i saw them. it's like the 2 hours just went by in a weird blissful blur.

more like yawns

Live in Seattle

https://screen.yahoo.com/live/event/swans

finally got around to watching that, wow the new stuff sounds great

Aside from a few tracks I haven't been able to get into the last 3 studio albums. Body Lovers is the only other Gira thing I couldn't get into. It's a bummer because I adore pretty much everything else, though I still have a bunch of solo, Angels Of Light and live Swans things to get.
I'll probably give them another spin in 5 years and see if I hear them differently.