Swans - We Rose From Your Bed With The Sun In Our Head

Whilst I wasn't quick enough to snag one of the original hand-made run of 1000, and whilst I am not rich enough to pay some prick hipster cunt with a wardrobe full of berets £90 for a second hand copy which no doubt they have never even played, I was finally able to get my hands on this live album when Mr. Gira thankfully re-pressed an unlimited, non-special edition run on CD. Phew. Unfortunately, this does not contain the excellent acoustic demos that the original hand-made version has, but that is a small sacrifice to pay.

I don't think I've ever been as excited about a live album before in my life. As a general rule, live albums suck ass, but at as far as Swans is concerned, I think they break enough general rules in music anyway so why not snap the live album rule too? They seem to put a live album out for every single era of their existence and they've only done one fairly shit one so far (Anonymous Bodies... anyone?), so that's not too bad going! Before The Seer came out, I needed something to compare with the utterly exhausting and all-encompassing experience that is Swans live, but My Father... just didn't cut the mustard. I love the record, but it is lacking in the certain intensity that Swans hold as a live group. We Rose From Your Bed... kindly provided me with that Swans-feel right in my own home, until The Seer came along and gave me a brain haemhorrage due to it's severe awesomeness.

When Swans play live, the songs become drawn out, almost improvised versions of themselves. The fact that the incredibly simple "No Words / No Thoughts" is dragged out for over 20 minutes here should be worrying, and to be fair when I saw them at Roadburn I was a bit confused as to what was actually going on,  but every single time the intro riff is repeated over and over and over, instead of getting more annoying, it gets more anxious; it keeps building and building until it eventually explodes. This is the general rule here - the seeking of total sonic annihilation! You can't fault Gira and Co. for not living up to that!

 

Just looking at this record makes me excited for the up and coming UK tour in April. A recent Facebook status by Gira informs us that in recent gigs, the song "The Seer" has mutated into something that is now one hour and a half in length! Jesus fucking Christ! I have recently been "diagnosed" with tinnitus and need to source out proper hearing protection before heading to more shows, but I just cannot imagine listening to Swans with earplugs in! It would be Sacrilege! Out on an unlimited run on Young God, and signed by Michael Gira. 

Swans - The Seer

I've been anticipating the review of this monster for a very long time; it has been nagging away at the back of my mind since I heard the album a few months ago. I almost wrote the review on the mp3 files I heard, but I pressured myself into waiting for the actual finished product, and boy am I glad that I did! The Seer is an absolute fucking monster of a record, and is by far the longest record I own at nearly 2 hours in length (I think it even outruns Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, although I could be wrong on that account so don't quote me on that). Swans have come literally leaps and bounds from My Father... that was released in 2010; literally, unexplainable progressiveness in such a short time is quite frankly mind boggling! But, that is what Swans have always done (for better or worse) and will most likely continue to do, should they ever somehow manage to figure out how to top this record for sheer ambition.

I got this excellent triple LP package directly from Young God Records on pre-order, and what a fantastic package it is, almost rivalling Boris & Sunn O)))'s Altar collaboration in terms of sheer shininess (although nothing quite beats Southern Lord shininess). The entire thing folds out like a rectangular snake, each partition holding a new record full of experimental, post rock-cum-noise madness, or a poster, or a download card, or a live dvd of an entire Swans performance. To top it off, the thing is signed on the back by the man himself, Mr. Michael Gira; the ringmaster in this circus of lunacy. Swans has had it's fair share of musicians, but it has always been about centring on Gira, and to an extent Westberg and Jarboe, but for once Gira doesn't shadow over as the "leader" (although he is that, if you get what I'm trying to say); the band is whole; each performer is bringing an equal amount to the table here. Phil Puleo and Thor's dual percussion attack is the defining backbone to the modern era Swans sound, and Christoph Hahn's oft-redneck-as-fuck slide guitar is fucking awesome as fucking fuck. I now want a slide guitar. The remaining two guitarist and one bassist flesh out the monumental cacophony almost perfectly, leaving Gira's baritone to lazily (or crazily) echo over the top of the whole lot of it almost like the icing on a rather large and weird cake. Oh, and Jarboe is back, if only for two songs.

It will take you several listens to even comprehend what-the-actual-fuck is going on here; "The Apostate" and "A Piece of the Sky" are both at the twenty minute mark, "The Seer" itself is just over thirty minutes, and "The Seer Returns" lulls on for another six, bringing the title track experience to nearly forty minutes. That's an hour and twenty for those four tracks alone, and you got a whole bunch of other tracks to comprehend on top of that! My only irk is that with the vinyl version the track list runs in a totally different order, and that all three of the massive tracks are split onto different sides of vinyl. With "The Seer" I can understand why for quality reasons, the title track and it's afterthought "The Seer Returns" (which is the original version of "The Seer", for those who've not heard the demos on We Rose From Your Bed...) takes up a whole disc in itself. But, I cannot understand why the two twenty minuters are split; they could easily take up a side each and not have to be broken up.

 

I could literally write on about this album for longer than it's actual duration so I'm going to round this off now. The Seer is a maddeningly ambitious record that will, without doubt, send you through various stages of insanity whilst trying to listen to the whole thing in one go. It is set to more than likely split the Swans fan base in two (again), and if I am totally honest a record of this gargantuan length does have a few dull moments (opener "Lunacy" springs to mind) but the longer, more progressive tracks more than make up for it. Give the track below a chance, and if you can stomach it, download / buy and love it forever!