S
omehow, more than 30 years after debuting amid the height of the No Wave movement, Swans are making the best music of their long, twisted existence. Founder, frontman and enduring ringleader Michael Gira has finally perfected his brand of atmospheric Post Punk, which has evolved from consistently brutal to something close to beautiful.
Swans unlikely creative resurgence — it reformed in 2010 after a 14-year break — has crested with 2012’s The Seer and last year’s To Be Kind, each of which feature dynamic sonic landscapes that range from ominously quiet to ear-crushingly loud, often within the same song.
CityBeat recently connected with Gira by phone to discuss everything from Swans’ approach to recording to his need to incorporate female voices to listening to The Beatles on acid.
CityBeat
: You guys have pretty much been on the road non-stop over the last five years, which is impressive given the physical and psychic toll it clearly takes to play this music for nearly three hours every night …
Michael Gira:
My soul has been successfully shredded and thrown in the garbage disposal at this point.
CB:
What’s it been like for you to see Swans have this kind of second act in recent years? It was interesting seeing you at the Pitchfork festival a couple years back and seeing the amount of young people who were into what you are doing.
MG:
It’s been very gratifying and encouraging to have people who have never heard the band at all come up to us after the show and say how much they got from it. That means a great deal to me. And the preponderance of young people at the shows is certainly very gratifying.
CB:
I initially experienced most of the songs on the new record in a live setting. Given how the songs can change and evolve from one night to the next, how do you decide which version will be recorded for your studio albums?
MG:
What happens is — at least what happened on the last record — we started to record things and then I realized, and I should know better at this point 30 years later, but recording studios are entirely different phenomena and so things change right away as soon as we start recording. And then after the initial performance there is a lot of orchestration involved to make things more dynamic in recorded form. I never really know when things are finished. I don’t view the songs as ever really being finished at this point.
Sometimes I’m finished with them. I don’t want to play them anymore. Sadly, a real high point of the live set, the song “Oxygen,” we had to drop because it just started to feel rote and there wasn’t any further we could push it. But the set is taking on a new shape because of it. It might not be better, but it’s certainly different because of it.
CB:
Why were you interested in working with John Congleton on this record?
MG:
I wasn’t really familiar with his recorded work. He kept sending me emails over the course of a year, and I guess he convinced me. We went in the studio and it was excellent. He must have just got a Grammy, right, with St. Vincent?
CB:
Yes, he did. Speaking of St. Vincent, Annie Clark and a few other female voices appear on the new record, which is a nice counterpoint to the more menacing aspect of Swans’ sound.
MG:
Obviously since the inclusion of (longtime member) Jarboe in the band, I’ve utilized female voices in the music for a long time. That was in the ’80s. I like the way female voices mix with guitars — sustaining, orchestral guitars. In a way they approximate the overtones that you hear live that you can’t record. And the female aspect, as opposed to the hulking, withering males in the group, definitely leavens things.
CB:
You guys obviously take great care in the packaging and art design of your records. Is the physical object something you think about in terms of how the listener experiences your music, especially in this age of digital music?
MG:
Yeah, ever since being a contemporaneous kid and opening up [The Beatles’] Sgt. Pepper’s on acid and listening to that and [Jimi Hendrix’s] Electric Ladyland and just staring endlessly at the artwork, it’s been an integral part of the music. I guess I undoubtedly stick to the idea that the interplay between the two is very important. And there are a lot of young people certainly who buy what we do, so that’s encouraging, especially with the change in the zeitgeist. There are a lot of young people who care about vinyl and about the kind of artistry that goes into how the music is presented as an album.
CB:
How has the business side of what you guys do changed over the years with the rise of the Internet? You have basically cut out the middleman of a conventional record label by releasing stuff on your own label. Does the constant touring help you get by financially?
MG:
That’s the only way to do it now. With the loss of a huge chunk of people who might have otherwise been buying music that are now stealing it, you’re right that touring fills in the gap, but you can only tour so much. I’ve figured out a way to make a living doing this. I always have.
CB:
Swans seems like this all-encompassing art project for you. And, for the listener, it’s certainly an immersive experience. It’s almost as if you’re trying to create your own alternate universe. Is that immersive experience something you strive to create?
MG:
That moment of listening to records in the ’60s — I’m old enough to have done so — and being completely immersed in those sounds and wanting to kind of make my own version of that experience for people and myself now is very important. ©
SWANS play Tuesday at Woodward Theater. Tickets/more info: woodwardtheater.com.
This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2015.
