More like these and other later Swans?
Liturgy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZTWWS3k5sc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3GyqEJpGW0
NotOP here
Should I check out my father will guide me up a rope to the sky?
>>60726981
I honestly don't understand the appeal of SWANS. I just can't get into them, Filth and Cop seemed to have a purpose and intent, everything after just baffles me.
>>60727792
you should. Its only a little like the seer and to be kind but its still a good record.
>>60727928
do u like industrial or post punk in general?
>>60727792
Its a mix of The Seer and We Are Him
>>60727024
HELLA FUCKING EPIC
>>60727928
Children of God is one you should try if you liked filth and cop.
if you like cinematic ambitious insanity, Soundtracks for the Blind, To Be Kind, and The Seer are for you (in any order, though either TBK or Soundtracks should be first I think)
If you like anything akin to early 90s metal sounds, Great Annihilator is for you.
If none of that works for you go with White Light from the Mouth of Infinity or Love of Life.
if none of that whatsoever tickles your fancy, go to Angels of Light and get into Gira that way. It makes it easier to go back into Swans
>>60731212
oh also if you liked filth and cop, there's no reason you shouldn't get into Raping A Slave or Public Castration is a Good Idea. also Greed and Holy Money. But really the live shit from that era was where it was truly "at"
>>60726981
Glenn Brancahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wERU4NiAtlE
This heathttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDq9YHcIip0
>>60731242
I came in here literally to post these artists, so good on you mate
>>60731212
I enjoy Filth and Cop mainly because I under st and their intent, how they were made, recorded etc. There is a certain simplicity to them, their later stuff just confounds me in general, like I don't get what they are trying to do, soundtracks and to be kind are all over the place, it's all production, there doesn't seem to be any kind of base to ground the music like their early stuff, I'm not saying I dont like music that I don't understand how it was made, I listen to a lot of musique concrete and avant garde stuff which baffles me too, but I enjoy it because I understand their vision and intent; the artists are grounded in a musical tradition and they either stay true to it or expand on it on their own way, but when I listen to something like Soundtracks or To Be Kind, I just don't "get" what they are trying to say. I would describe it as a spotty mixed bag of overproduced sounds with no clear vision or intent. It's like they just went into a studio with a massive budget, fucked around for a bit, and just finally got sick of the project and released it. It baffles me that people regard their later stuff so highly.
>>60731796
it's honestly kinda odd you'd say this becase it seems almost like you haven't listened to their evolution. they were obviously trying to create soundscapes with music
>>60731796
this is interesting. when i listened to soundtracks for the first time i somehow inatantly "got it". i think it had something to do with the revelation of qhat you can do with music, which is basically anything. also that stuff is similar to what i personally have thought can be done with music. to play with sounds, field recordings, anything to create a piece. to hear swans do it so well was like a confirmation that it can be done, if u know what i mean.. i think the album also conveys a feeling of desperation and it really is like a soundtrack, that is what gira attempted to do. a soundtrack for an imaginative movie. it just makes sense to me. as such it is random but that's the thing. that there can be everything. idk.
as to their other stuff it is post punk and has gothic aesthetics which i'm into. all that gloomy imagery and stuff over pretty melodies and catchy songs. what's not to get?
>>60731822
But they fail to do that, if you are going to do that, release an album of soundscapes, don't release a 2 anf a half hour album that is completely scattered with no clear vision. It also seems strange to me that a song like Oxygen is on an album like to be kind, it's a fairly tradition alt rock track among experimental stuff. Their albums just don't seem to have a congent or lucid presentation like, say, something like darkside of the moon, or the disintegration loops.
>>60731796
To Be Kind sounds nothing like Soundtracks. It's nowhere near as saturated with effects and soundscaping, and it's actually pretty obvious how it was made (fairly standard instrumentation, I mean).
I actually don't get why their early albums (particularly Filth and Cop) are so well-regarded. I mean, I like them, because I like noise rock, but there's really not much substance to them at all. Greed and Holy Money are better, but they really didn't start making good music until Children of God. Gira even admits he had no real musical sense in the time of early Swans, it was just a means of getting a message across.
>>60731928
for me that randomness is honestly part of the charm. i think a coherent concept album would be just plain boring. i like surprises
>>60731928
maybe you just don't like it, and should spend your time doing something else.
There is an underlying logic to the seer and to be kind, and STFTB isn't exactly the same kind of "concept" album in the obvious way. Or super over the top smack you in the face obvious like dark side. Maybe listening to the art music scene that predated Swans will give you something better
>>60731928
>Oxygen
>alt-rock
>>60731939
I just think the production on soundtracks and to be kind is so over the top, that's why I enjoy their first two albums. Although I will admit there are parts of to be kind I really like, but that doesn't make up for how messy it feels, when I compare to be kind to something like Lift your skinny wrists it doesn't even feel like it's in the same league. Lift your skinny wrists is also very overproduced but it just seems like they had an idea and stuck to it. Swans just don't seem to kno what they want to do, instead of slowly evolving, they just throw a bunch of shit at you and you're left to pick up all the pieces, and when you finally have done that, it doesn't feel like it was worth it.
>>60732022
Usually when I disagree with someone I can at least understand where they're coming from, but you seem to be conflating Soundtracks and To Be Kind for no real reason. I completely get why you dislike Soundtracks - it's more of a collection of songs than an album, and the more post-rock tracks are very soundscape heavy. The same can't be said about To Be Kind, though. It's not overproduced at all and besides a few songs like Kirsten Supine doesn't sound much like Soundtracks. I don't get the Skinny Fists comparison either, besides the fact they both fall under the post-rock umbrella.
I think to understand you need to go back and listen to Swans' discography again. They've been around for 30 years, and their evolution has actually been fairly slow and steady with that in mind. Their only truly drastic change was the more out-there songs on Soundtracks, but besides that their evolution has been pretty logical from album to album.
>>60731976
I listen to a lot of stuff like Stockhausen, Basinski, richard chartier etc, and it can sometimes be difficult to take in all at once, but eventually I sort through it and can see their intent. Swans, I just cannot for the life of me understand what they are getting at. No reviewer really discusses in depth why they like it beyond "oh wow, it's really moody, it feels really experimental, all the different aspects create a really good atmosphere 10/10" nobody dissects the actual music and the production behind it, they just talk about the sounds on abstract and vague ways and use similies to describe how it made them feel. It's just absurd. When someone who studies music talks about Stockhausen, they discuss his ideas and execution. With swans nobody seems to, because to me at least, it just sounds like an old man yelling at a cloud and booking a studio with a massive budget and fucking around with things and getting people to help him when he doesn't seem to know what he's doing.
>>60726981
Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth, all the other bands they ripped off
>>60732094
I'm comparing them because they are both very experimental and vary from track to track. I do enjoy some stuff on To be kind, but it just feels like the ideas in it don't really come together, the title track is cool, oxygen is cool, but besides that, I'm having trouble understanding why these particular tracks are even on the album.
>>60732022
You're right that Skinny Fists is better, but to be kind has a strong sense of direction.
>>60727792
You fucking people make me sick is fucking GOAT
>>60732095
You aren't dissecting the music either, you're just vaguely calling it "overproduced." Even with early Swans you say you can see its intent without actually stating what that intent is. Swans' process at the moment is actually quite open. They don't go in the studio on fuck around, these are songs that evolve live for a year or so and then they go in studio to record what is essentially a snapshot of where they are at that point in time. Just look at the original version of Oxygen, for example. They don't even have the budget to have highly-produced live versions of the songs, they save that for the (crowd-funded) studio version. In other words, the core of the songs are not tethered to the production in studio.
>>60732149
Again, I just can't see this. The tone in To Be Kind is pretty consistent throughout. There are no drastic changes in instrumentation or style like there are in Soundtracks.
the idea of soundtracks is simple. to be a soundtrack. different kind of songs for different scenes.
i dont know about swans newer stuff. i'm not so into it. but does there need to be a concept?
>>60732022
Your posts are completely baffling to me. I was the biggest Lift your skinny fists fanboy out there but when I discovered late Swans I had to admit that The Seer or SFTB blows everything Godspeed has ever done out of the water, music wise and composition wise. I just... I have no idea how to help you, man. If you can't see what Swans were going for in these records I feel sorry for you. I really hope you'll enjoy them sometime.
The Seer especially is incredibly cohesive album with unique, original and singular aesthetic, even though it includes folky tracks, crazy free rock shit like 93 Ave or 20+ min jams. Its dark, twisted, groovy... to me it feels like a soundtrack to a medieval movie about witches summoning some kind of a bestial god through a fetishistic cannibalistic ritual, chanting these incantations and gibberish while dancing naked around fire and slitting throats of virgin maids to draw their blood as a sacrifice... I don't know man, but I get really strong aesthetic vibes. Its not a regular rock album, it doesn't feel like it, it has extremely strong vision, it feels almost mythological.
To be honest maybe just try turning up the volume. Early and late Swans aren't complicated, its the opposite. Its rock music stripped down to the most basic, primitive core: rhythm. Yes, Gira likes to use tens of instruments and production gimmicks but everything stands on the rhythms. All the neat details and slide guitar melodies and stuff are for you to enjoy after you already got through the albums five times, those are the reasons why the albums are so re-listenable, but when you're just getting into them, focus on the rhythms. It will slowly take over you and you'll find yourself dancing to The Apostate like its the best party song in the universe.
>>60732198
Their intent with their first two albums was just that raw nihillist rage, angst, ennui, dissatisfaction people feel at a certain point in their life and their inability to express it, that is why the music is so loud and abrasive. The music emboidies something that can't take form in words or any other form of expression. With soundtracks and to be kind, I just can't understand their intent and how the music expresses that intent, which is something that should be essential for an "art" band like swans.
>>60732303
Im not talking about seer, seer is okay but it's still a really messy record, but better than lift your skinny fists? C'mon anon, "sleep" alone blows everything swans have done this decade out of the water. Also, that description, get a hold of yourself mate, you sound like a wannabe Cormac McCarthy.
>>60732244
I thought To Be Kind was roughly about life and death, and what it means to be human. Kind of a vague concept compared to Soundtracks, but still. It's like early Swans where they just riffed off of a loose idea.
>>60732320
Having thought about it, I think there are some huge similarities between nu Swans and early Swans in that regard. The songs are kind of abstract and fluid (live recordings are/were way different to studio recordings, and even then the live version you got was dependent on when you saw them). The key difference is that early Swans had the goal to beat the concept into you, whereas nu Swans looks to develop the concept into something bigger throughout the song. In both cases the end result is very drone-y, and I actually think To Be Kind is the closest Swans have gotten to sounding like Filth/Cop since the 80s (maybe in part because of not having Jarboe any more).
>>60732370
Are you fucking kidding? If you at least mentioned a different track, but Sleep is the most cheesy and least interesting track on LYSF. I had a suspicion reading your previous posts (mentioning Basinski and such) but you're just a pleb in disguise.
Yeah, and TBK is The Seer on drugs.
>>60732404
Lmao my god, you're so pretentious. You literally think you have god tier tastes because you like a couple of swans albums. William Basinski is great, I think you're a pleb for not liking him. The disintegration loops is a beautiful project with a simple message: everything eventually changes, and it happens so slowly that you do not even realize that it has happened until it is over. It is executed with lush sounding loops that make you feel like you're slowly drifting through your past experiences while the foundations are slowly breaking apart.
>>60731928
>a congent or lucid presentation like, say, something like darkside of the moon, or the disintegration loops.
you have bad taste
>>60732404
>not liking sleep
Get a load of this turbopleb.
>>60732303
>>60732404
Literally nothing that Swans has done blew Skinny Fists out of the water
They're both great bands and neither of them could do what the other does very well (although the opening track on GY!BE's newest makes me think the could go Swans)
>>60727792
If you're gonna listen to My Father Will Guide Me, you gotta listen to it with the bonus disc, it's got a 46 minute track on, it's better than The Seer and Bring The Sun imo
https://mega.nz/#F!7lkyFbrL!gQlSqXMQIwnMLDpOqMRodQ
>>60732521
you told me to get hold of myself and then wrote this? jej
Melancholia by Basinski was nice but Disintegration loops are all concept and no substance. There is little to no reason to listen to them, all their artistic merit is in the short Wikipedia article, not in the music. If anything I feel pity for Basinski because his other stuff is genuinely musically interesting but pretentious faggots like you are like "woooahhhh, tapes that destroy themselves with cover art of 9/11, so fucking ARTISTIC!"
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGE7q0oDlEI
Secondly, I haven't said my tastes are god tier, far from that, but they certainly are better than yours. Also I hope you are enjoying your first week on /mu/, aassuming you're not a troll trying to bait Swans fans with these retarded posts of course, which, now that I think of it, is very possible so if that is the case here is your (You) and see ya mate.
P.S. Tim Hecker does that whole "disintegration and decay" in electronic music better.
>>60732544
I like it but compared to Antennas, Storm or even Static its too predictable and boring. Some like to use the term crescendocore, I don't, but it wouldn't be unfitting.
>>60732303
Holy shit, you cant even compare swans reptative, incessant, abstract noise to the beautiful composition and instrumentation on LYSF.
>>60732671
>>60732095
(guy you replied to) I study music, and have talked about No Wave, including Swans, in an academic setting. Also you just listed three artists without much rhyme or reason to it. Stockhausen didn't even make album music, why are you listing these people. Nobody really talks about Basinski likes this (his music is often considered purely conceptual, with little actual musical content that supports it. he basically finds meaning by virtue of source material, but does little to develop it further. i dont care if people like it or not though), and Chartier and Swans are talked about in similar ways often enough. Its about atmosphere. This is something you clearly just don't care for. There isn't anything wrong with just not liking something other people think is good.
If you want to talk about To Be Kind, we could talk about the minimalist influence to perform seemingly endless repetitions with minor variations and development, a logical process given their New York art house roots.
>>60732657
You're either deluded or just completely full of yourself; an individual who is constantly trying to foster a certain image or impression of yourself to project onto others around you through some vaguely defined abstract concept of esoteric musical taste. The way you cannot handle somebody else with conflicting views to your own and have to project things like me being a troll or newfag just goes to show how easily your self image is able to be rattled due to you not actually having any strong convictions at all. Have fun listening to you abrasive noise
>>60732671
Are you the original guy? You say you like early Swans, but you're criticizing new Swans as being repetitive, incessant, abstract noise?
>>60732747
Stockhausen indeed doesn't make album music, but I'm comparing his work to swans in this instance because I would hardly call something like soundtracks "album music". You mention swans are about atmosphere, I would argue basinski is about atmosphere, his execution may be simple, but the result is fantastic and the concept combined with the loops and the context is something that has yet to be matched. The musical content to basinki os the content of the actual loops themselves and how the sound changes throughout the process to make somethinf completely different, the process of the loop disintegration itself creates a new way of recontexualizing and distorting the source material to place somthing minor within a major work. And as far as swans endless repititions with minor variations of development, I think the disintegration loops does this in a more imaginative and conceptual way as opposed to droning away on instruments for 20 minutes.
>>60732896
Swans are hardly "droning", current ones especially. The songs vary and evolve too much.
>>60731915
>it really is like a soundtrack, that is what gira attempted to do. a soundtrack for an imaginative movie
That's how I felt about The Seer the first time I listened to it.
>>60732896
the music on soundtracks is album music. this is a fact. the music was released on an album, and these versions are considered the definitive versions of the tracks. western art music does not work in this fashion, as the composition itself is considered the "original" which performances are based on.
everything you say about Basinski is just your opinion. I find his music boring, and I don't really get how you think his music has yet to be matched by other tape or loop music. What you're saying is so great about it is basically the concept of tape loop music itself, not uniquely the desintigration loops. maybe you should just listen to more music based on tape loops.
swans aren't "droning away" on instruments. repetition is not the same thing as drone. why is it so bad for you to just like to sound of one more than another?
