“All I hear is what I should have done better, both as a singer and as a producer.”
Michael Gira is no sentimentalist when it comes to Swans recordings. This includes the group’s forthcoming record The Beggar, their 16th, released on June 23 on his Young God label and in Europe via Mute.
The album was recorded and mixed at Candy Bomber Studio, Berlin, with current Swans Kristof Hahn, Larry Mullins, Dana Schechter, Christopher Pravdica, Phil Puleo and (guest Swan) Ben Frost, after Gira had first written the songs back in the US.
“I hasten to add that the musicians are great,” he continuous, “and I think for the most part, the songs have substance. I just never seem to get it right. If nothing else, that’s an impetus for me to keep moving forward, trying to finally, finally get it right…”
For a time, during the isolated days of COVID-induced tour cancellations and seemingly endless waiting, there was little forward momentum to be had.
The pandemic came soon after the release of leaving meaning, (Swans’ last album), blowing a hole in the entire promotional cycle.
That album was a new direction for the group. Having first retired the band in 1997, Gira resurrected Swans in 2010 with a new configuration. A period of unprecedented continuity followed, until Gira felt a change was needed.
“We decided to disband (at least temporarily) the consistent Swans line-up we enjoyed from 2010 to 2018 after eight years of being in each other’s presence constantly while rehearsing, touring, and recording without any meaningful breaks,” explains Gira.
“The collaborative way we worked as a group was no longer bearing the same ripe fruit it did at our peak, so we let it go,” he continues, also citing the strain of the “athletic endurance” required to play ever longer musical pieces and live sets that sometimes exceeded three hours.
“Beginning with Leaving Meaning (in 2019), I decided to make Swans a more open-ended venture, with musicians coming and going from project to project.”
And then COVID happened.
Even while he wasn’t working on new material, though, Gira still had a connection to Swans, listening to records in detail as he put together reissues of albums like 1987’s Children of God and 1991’s White Light From the Mouth of Infinity.
Although “ there was no conscious effort to refer back to past music,” according to Gira, The Beggar does at times strongly evoke memories of past releases.
There are familiarities through this record, but it’s like walking through a city you last visited 30 years before; you know the landscape, but there are many new features.
One element of the new record’s landscape is a certain gigantic, triumphant quality, heard on tracks like “Michael is Done,” that brings to mind some of Swans’ records from the early ’90s.
Gira offers a simple explanation for such associations. “I do always want the music to envelope and elevate and I think what you’re hearing as ‘triumphant’ is a recent proclivity for major chords.”
Even taking this at face value, there are other even stronger reference points. For instance the title track, which heavily evokes “Was He Ever Alive?”—another early 90s Swans gem.
Here and elsewhere, though, this feels more like Gira allowing the past into the room, rather than actively trying to relive it.
The music of Swans is always intense, but on The Beggar, there’s real tenderness, too—notably on “Unforming” and the genuinely beautiful “No More of This.”
One could almost picture a sea of upheld lighters accompanying the latter track at a show, though Gira offers a dry response to such a thought. “That seems unlikely to happen. If it does, I might have to pass wind in that direction and see if it ignites.”
Another notable feature of the new record is the lyrical content, with Gira’s voice sounding particularly strong—something he was attentive to during the recording.
“Naturally, as a producer, I always try to make my voice sound as good as I can. I was conscious to relax while singing here, due to the fact that there are so very many words on this record, and I didn’t want anything in my delivery to distract from the narrative.”
It shouldn’t be forgotten that Gira has also sat in the producer’s seat for almost every Swans record. The sound of the band is not just a product of his writing, but his choices in the studio—and the particular inspirations he’s drawn from.
“I suppose the obvious influences would be Phil Spector and John Cale (particularly on his generally superb trove of solo releases). And, of course, George Martin and the music of Ennio Morricone.”
Mention of Morricone (the composer of so many famous movie soundtracks) emphasizes the cinematic aspect often heard in Swans. Gira himself composed for one feature (Two Small Bodies directed by Beth B) back in 1993, but to his disappointment never had a serious opportunity to score a movie since then.
“It was always sort of my dream, dating back to even before Soundtracks for the Blind, but it never happened. Now, I don’t think I’d really have the time or the energy for it, to be honest.”
Despite admiring directors like Lars von Trier, Nicolas Winding Refn and Lynne Ramsay, Gira suspects he probably wouldn’t gel with such visionaries on a shared project.
“My report card has always said, since elementary school, ‘doesn’t work well with others!’” That said, there’s so much in the catalog that is ‘cinematic;’ I don’t see why an insightful director couldn’t glean an excellent soundtrack from well-curated preexisting material.”
Perhaps it’s Gira’s cinematic vision that’s driven some of the increasingly expansive Swans pieces. By 2016’s The Glowing Man 15, 20, even 30-plus-minute tracks, seemed almost a regular occurrence.
Previous album leaving meaning saw a move away from this, while songs on The Beggar only just break the 10-minute mark on a couple of occasions.
That is, until the second disk of the CD edition of the release, which opens with “The Beggar Lover (Three)” a gigantic, mutating musical construction of almost 45 minutes. For the vinyl edition, the track comes as a downloadable file.
It’s one of Gira’s most ambitious musical creations to date, combining “previously recorded elements from Swans music, new recordings made specifically for the piece, and ‘found’ non-musical sounds”—a kind of thematic continuation of the side-project The Body Lovers (Number One of Three).
“Somewhere along the line, I think I made a piece that could be considered number two, and this recent thing is three, but in any event, I wanted to go into this way of working with sound again,” he explains.
“It just takes a certain (over) confidence that I can make something compelling and hopefully meaningful happen by forcing random elements into a shape that makes sense.”
Gira credits engineer Ingo Krauss at Candy Bomber Studio, Berlin with helping him realize this complex undertaking.
Describing his aim with the piece as “trying to forge a soundscape that is dynamic, moves forward, and has psychological friction and resonance,” Gira could just as easily be describing the force driving Swans forward in general—seeking friction and resonance, both on record and on stage.
Maybe it’s driving Gira on altogether. At the close of “Michael is Done,” there’s a sense of him looking beyond his own life.
“When Michael is gone, some other will come. When the other has come, then Michael is done.”
What’s the feeling? Is it celebration, or regret, or acceptance or something else?
“I’m just as stupefied and awestruck by the raw fact of existence as ever. That’s how I feel, as if I’ve just been punched in the face a split second ago and it doesn’t hurt yet.”
Preorder The Beggar from Young God Records.
Illustration by Phil Puleo
