London
24 August 2023
For over forty years now, Michael Gira‘s Swans have been creating some of the most uncompromising music on Earth.
Well, I mean, there was that gap in the middle, where for thirteen years Michael Gira’s Angels Of Light were creating some other music that wasn’t exactly the LEAST uncompromising music on Earth, but who’s counting? Well, me, clearly. Surprised the question really needed to be asked, to be honest with you.
And for all that time their live shows have been legendary. Mostly for punishing volume levels, but while that’s entirely justified, it’s also a little unfair, because there’s way more to Swans than just dials going up to twelve.
All good bands grow and change, but in Swans’ case it’s always been more a matter of evolving and mutating. They’re a bit like a long-running TV show in that regard — if you miss a few episodes you might have major problems figuring out how they got from where they were to where they are. Unlike a TV show, however, understanding that is not necessary in order to enjoy it. Anyway, tonight they’re playing at The Troxy off the back of their latest criticially-acclaimed release The Beggar. Well, technically off the back of their last two albums, a whole shitload of dates for Leaving Meaning having been cancelled during Covid. Which was something of a double-edged sword for Swans fans, as being unable to tour for one album meant Gira found himself writing material for another one.So where ARE Swans at now? OK, brief recap — they released a trilogy of albums which saw them eschewing the song form almost entirely, only to then gradually coalesce around verses, choruses and things you have time to listen to on a short bus journey. But it’s slightly more complicated than that, because the processes of evolution and mutation keep happening with every tour, as improvisation and creativity remain driving forces. For a band so monolithic and solid, ironically nothing is set in stone. Well, it is, but the stone keeps melting under the intensity of the music.
Which means tonight we get what resembles a massive ocean of sound, with more traditional songs pushed out into it like little paper boats in a storm. Some are instantly recognisable, some not so much, but nothing is quite as it is on vinyl (or whatever the young people use these days). Songs do start and finish, and there’s occasionally even room for applause (which is rapturous), but like the best of their albums, it’s best considered as one two-hour piece that just… goes places. The Troxy is all seated this evening, which provides plenty of pre-game shenanigans as it discovers that a numbered seating system might work for a cinema or theatre crowd, it’s not quite so well-suited to a rock audience, and mass confusion ensues. But it’s all very friendly confusion, and nobody seems to be being stopped from sitting on the floor, or the stairs, or wherever they get the best view. Because nobody wants to miss this.Anyway, it’s all kinda moot, as after two songs (well, this being Swans, that’s like forty minutes) Gira tells us “you know you don’t have to sit in those chairs”, and everyone piles down the front. And stands there, enraptured and swaying for the duration. Which is brave — they can break a man’s arm, you know.
I know I’ve used both “rapturous” and “enraptured”, which would normally be lazy, but in this case they’re both perfectly apt. At their best, Swans live shows are about as close to a religious experience as it gets outside of actual religious experiences, and I’m not even sure they’re not the same thing anyway. And this is definitely Swans at their best. There’s no Norman Westberg in the current line-up, which initially seemed odd, but he’s definitely present — and not just in spirit, as his actual physical body played support with a solo set of sweet guitar drones and harmonies. Post-2010, Swans have been hard to classify not only in terms of their music but in terms of their set-up. Ostensibly a band, at times they come across more like an orchestra, with Gira as the conductor, controlling volume and tempo by way of hand signals and facial expressions. Indeed, at one point he appears to be playing Kristof Hahn, manning the pedal steel, like a theremin. And that’s when it occurs to me — not so much a band or an orchestra as an instrument, with Gira playing them in the way SunnO))) play amps.For a gig which started with the band and the audience all sitting down, it ends with an astounding amount of energy. I mean, it’d be an astounding amount of energy for a gig which had started with everyone standing up, but basically what I’m saying is that there is LOTS of energy involved, of various kinds ranging from the physical to the arcane.
There’s been some talk that this might finally be the end of Swans — Gira’s 69 (nice) and The Beggar contain tracks called “Michael Is Done” and “No More Of This” (the latter of which got an amazing airing tonight), but who can really say other than the man himself? Point being, I hope it isn’t; but if it is, there can be few more triumphant ways to go out.-Words: Justin Farrington-
-Pictures: Dave Pettit-
