What were you doing when we first told you about We Rose from Your Bed with the Sun in Our Head ( TMT Review ), Swans’ two-disc live album? Whipping up a batch of oatmeal cookies? Rollerskating? Googling pictures of cats wearing pirate hats? What did you do when you got to the part about the album selling out before you could snag a copy? Burn your cookies? Fall off your skates? Forget to feed your real cat? How would you feel if I said that you could order a copy of that very album right now if you wanted? That it ...

Score: 7.5/10 Young God Records Swans Some may have been curious why Michael Gira decided to resurrect the mighty Swans moniker after a 13 [...]

Strings of Consciousness From Beyond Love [Staubgold; 2012] by Joe Hemmerling Rating: Even given the fact that collaboration is the norm among experimental artists, there is something unique in Strings of Consciousness’ defiantly collaborative spirit. The group is little more than a loose collective of up to 14 mostly European experimental musicians centered around electronic artist Philippe Petit and multi-instrumentalist Herve Vincenti. They seem to draw a peculiar energy from bringing others into their creative process. Their discography runs the gamut from relatively straightforward collabs like 2009’s Strings of Consciousness and Angel to more out-of the-box projects like Fantomastique ...

Young God Records has announced the release of a new live Swans album We Rose From Your Bed With The Sun In Our Head, a 2 CD set. We Rose From Your Bed With The Sun In Our Head is Handmade and Assembled With 2 Color Woodblock Print Sleeve of Original Drawing by M.Gira. Each [...]

Counterflows is an innovative new festival taking place simultaneously in three cities, Glasgow, London and Berlin, celebrating underground and experimental music. While Clash would have loved to have gone to Berlin to see it, we can think of no finer venue for Glasgow’s opening night, a Good Friday, than the gorgeous, 18th century church St Andrews in the Square, and its heavenly acoustics. Arriving in time to see Grouper, initially with a couple of other musicians lending a drone support, then drifting offstage to leave us alone with Liz Harris. She accompanies herself on guitar and keyboards, using her ...

Michael Gira mars the release of this predictably great live album by treating his fans poorly. read more

Highlights: Lee Fields & The Expressions, Logikparty, Dark Room Notes & No Monster Club album launches, Surgeon, DJ Format, Michael Gira of Swans and The Jimmy Cake. This is the weekly list of recommended gigs taking place over the next … Read More... →

Larkin Grimm - The Road Is Paved With Leaves (WNYC Spinning On Air Session) Fun facts about Larkin Grimm: 1. She’s on Michael Gira’s Young God Records. (UPDATE: She was on Young God Records. Soul Retrieval was released on her own Bad Bitch Records label.) He’s quoted as saying: Larkin is a magic woman. She lives in the mountains in north Georgia. She collects bones, smooth stones, and she casts spells. She worships the moon. She is very beautiful, and her voice is like the passionate cry of a beast heard echoing across the mountains just after a ...

Swans We Rose From Your Bed With The Sun In Our Head [Young God; 2012] by Paul Haney Rating: Swans founder and sole constant Michael Gira was stern and adamant when he announced in 2009 that his intention to revamp his then-defunct flagship project was no mere grab at cheap nostalgia. Indeed, it was easy for his audience to be cynical following the flurry of classic post-punk/indie rock acts that decided to reform throughout the 2000s, most of them nakedly and blatantly grabbing at every dollar to be squeezed from their post-mortem fame. But there’s something about Gira ...

I don’t like mixtapes with that flow between songs seamlessly. I like to be jolted between track A and B, for there to be no doubt that one has stopped and the other started. I guess Kiran Leonard is the same. He has certainly sequenced the opening of his free-to-download album “Bowler Hat Soup” that way. ‘Dear Lincoln’ is a stuttering Of Montreal theatrical piano-bashing romp that handbrake-turns into ‘Brunswick Street’ an off-cut from Robert Wyatt as sung by Rufus Wainwright . It fades out with carnival pipe-organ into ‘Port-Ainé’, one of the highlights of this sprawling record, which sounds ...

From Swans’ Facebook page , a note from Michael Gira on his temper and loud crowds (covered here by Denver’s Westword ): this is both embarrassing and funny (to me). there were hundreds of people there to see/hear me (and i’m blessed, some flew from faraway places or drove 100s of miles) but the audience for david were apparently not interested, and rude. david and his music are wonderful, but was a sort of odd mix. no hard feelings. anyway, this is what happens when i lose my temper onstage. i will never grow up, it seems. (plus, i ...

Michael Gira (All Photos by Daniel Ahrendt) Engaging the tumult of sound generated through song and instrumental guitar pieces that Michael Gira and Sir Richard Bishop respectively performed at the Triple Door last Thursday could have been a conceptually iffy proposition. The music that both musicians create is emotionally intense to a startling degree, and while [...]

Michael Gira and Sir Richard Bishop at The Triple Door | 3/22 | 8pm Sharp | $18 adv. / $23 Day of / $28 VIP | All Ages Michael Gira (Photo by Phil Sharp) by Daniel Ahrendt After reuniting the legendary black hole that is Swans in 2010 with the album My Father Will Guide [...]

Michael Gira and Sir Richard Bishop at The Triple Door | 3/22 | 8pm Sharp | $18 adv. / $23 Day of / $28 VIP | All Ages Michael Gira (Photo by Phil Sharp) After reuniting the legendary black hole that is Swans in 2010 with the album My Father Will Guide Me Up A [...]

SPIN reports that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Karen O and Low have been recruited for the new Swans album. Swans frontman Michael Gira confirmed that the band will release a new album called The Seer which will drop on his own Young God Records this summer. Are you going to "see" with The Swans? —Maggie