Swans have commenced the sixth leg of a year-long world-wide tour celebrating the release of their 2 CD set To Be Kind, the third studio album from this outfit since their reactivation by band primum mobile Michael Gira in 2010 after a 14 year hiatus. In addition, on November 4 they re-issued their 1983 debut album Filth on vinyl for the first time in decades. In addition on November 25 they release a digital EP of "Oxygen" from To Be Kind, featuring four different versions: an edit of Oxygen by Mute founder Daniel Miller, a live version from Primavera, an early version recorded at Gira's home and an acoustic version recorded at StudioMute. The touring line-up is: Michael Gira - guitar, voice (original Swans); Norman Westberg - guitar (original Swans); Christoph Hahn - guitar (mid period Swans and most Angels Of Light); Phil Puleo - drums, percussion, dulcimer etc etc (final Swans tour and most Angels); Chris Pravdica - bass and gadgets (Flux Information Sciences / Services/ Gunga Din); Thor Harris - drums, percussion, vibes, dulcimer, curios, keys, etc etc... (Angels / Shearwater). I'm hoping you'll consider advancing this show with a feature, CD review or advance blurb.
To Be Kind was produced by Michael Gira, performed by the touring line-up, recorded by the venerable John Congleton at Sonic Ranch, outside El Paso Texas; further recordings and mixing were accomplished at Congleton's studio in Dallas, Texas. Gira says of the new album, "A good portion of the material for this album was developed live during the Swans tours of 2012/13. Much of the music was otherwise conjured in the studio environment." The album debuted at #37 on Billboard's Top 200 sales chart and has garnered a huge amount of ecstatic coverage from a host of impressive outlets:
Swans' grand new album, "To Be Kind," is a career-defining work that few could have expected from a 30-plus-year project considered by many to be well past its peak. At 122 minutes, it's as long as a movie and as densely heavy as a Richard Serra sculpture.
Defying easy categorization, "To Be Kind" is a rock album, but it's not something to be taken lightly. Brash, polarizing, fearless and filled with a purity of vision that would make Col. Kurtz blanch, the work features mountains of guitars and beats made with boulders, brass, laser-gun noises, guest vocals from Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent) and a sprawling vision...Randall Roberts/Los Angeles Times
...To Be Kind harnesses Swans' crushing volume, pulverizing repetition and lacerating waves of feedback - all those conventionally aggro signifiers - to show us that love can be as vast and voracious as the void, and the void as welcoming as a lover's embrace. They are one and the same.... Phillip Sherbourne/Spin.com
... As it plays out, To Be Kind starts to resemble a cult procession unto itself, a mesmerizing spectacle of an omnipotent band whose sound continues to expand in scope and ranks swell in size...Stuart Berman/Pitchfork.com
Michael Gira founded the seminal NYC band Swans in 1982. Quickly infamous for their punishing, brutal and repetitive onslaughts of sound, extreme volume levels, and the self-abusing, abject shouts and growls of Gira's sloganeering vocals, Swans gradually transformed over 15 years, ultimately venturing into harsh mechanical proto-industrial rock, to sprawling shifts of texture and perspective (see the bucolic atmospheric folk idles and martial stomps of their much heralded Children of God double LP from 1987), to gentle acoustic-based songs, and finally on to their ultimate statement, Soundtracks For The Blind (1997) which somehow incorporated all of these elements at once, across well over 2 hours of music in one album. At this point, Gira called it quits after 15 years of relentless touring and productivity, and disbanded Swans. He went on to release his music under the name Angels Of Light on a long series of critically acclaimed albums. He also produced and released music through his label Young God Records and was responsible for finding and nurturing such notable talents as Devendra Banhart, Lisa Germano, Akron/Family, and James Blackshaw. In 2010, he reactivated Swans, releasing My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky to ecstatic critical response and touring the world for the better part of a year. The Seer, a 2 CD set came out in 2012 and was celebrated by a year-long tour as well, both the album and live shows eliciting still more media praise, the album placing nicely on Billboard's Top 200 Sales Chart.
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SWANS North American Tour Dates 2015
2/17/2015 Portland ME Port City Music Hall
2/18/2015 Providence RI Columbus Theatre
2/19/2015 Montreal QC Theatre National
2/20/2015 Toronto ON Phoenix Concert Theater
2/21/2015 Chicago IL Thalia Hall
2/23/2015 Grand Rapids MI The Pyramid Scheme
2/24/2015 Cincinnati OH Woodward Theater
2/25/2015 Cleveland OH Beachland Ballroom
2/26/2015 New York NY Bowery Ballroom
3/23/2015 Philadelphia PA Union Transfer
3/25/2015 Baltimore MD Baltimore Soundstage
3/26/2015 Richmond VA The Broadberry
3/27/2015 Carrboro NC Cats Cradle
3/28/2015 Atlanta GA Terminal West
3/29/2015 Knoxville TN BIG EARS Festival
3/31/2015 Jacksonville FL Jack Rabbit's
4/1/2015 Saint Petersburg FL State Theater
4/2/2015 Pensacola FL Vinyl Music Hall
4/3/2015 New Orleans LA One Eyed Jacks
4/4/2015 Dallas TX Trees
4/6/2015 Austin TX The Parish
4/9/2015 Albuquerque NM Sunshine Theater
4/11/2015 Indio CA Coachella music Festival-
4/12/2015 Tucson AZ Club Congress
4/13/2015 Phoenix AZ Crescent Ballroom
4/17/2015 San Francisco CA Regency Theater
4/18/2015 Indio CA Coachella music Festival
