#SWANS LUNACY FULL#

'Mother of the World' is a Slint-esque post-rock odyssey in waltz time it's bolstered by a sublimely wayward vocal part that morphs after about four and a half minutes into a laconic Southern Gothic growl-hymn that evokes Beefheart attempting to clamber out of a tomb, or Iggy clambering back into one, or Lou Reed after he's been in one for a decade or two. And after this appropriately portentous introduction – a visual analogue to the satanic-wolf-emerging-from-the-shadows cover art – things just keep getting better. 'Lunacy' is a demonically, ominously understated opener with clanging instrumentation redolent of the Suspiria soundtrack Low's Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker intone a two-note motif that sounds like the Fleet Foxes being slowly, beautifully murdered. Mirroring the late-peaking trajectory of Gira himself, this is a work that builds and builds across the course of its epic two-hour cycle. Michael Gira is the village elder we can learn something from, the anti-Tony Blair, the baby boomer who is, by the sound of things, even angrier than we are about the state of the world in 2012.Īnd what a formidable crescendo of anger. This is an album that vindicates maturity, long years of toil, cumulative effort, resilience, patience, wisdom. With this dystopian thought in mind, it's heartening to encounter The Seer, the stellar twelfth album by Swans, an outfit fronted by a fiftysomething white guy intent on giving something back to society while showing the younger generation a thing or two. If the revolution happened tomorrow it would clean up.īut the sad reality is that fiftysomething white guys are hoarding all the money, jobs, and power, while the rest of us are stripping naked and pretending to be Prince Harry. Imagine if 1968 somehow happened again, with tech-savvy, self-reliant, extravagantly knowledgeable hipsters leading the charge instead of fey Dylan-quoting hippies.

#SWANS LUNACY FULL#

Imagine if all those young artists, academics, media types, and computer geeks who spend their weeks generating reams of meaningless CV fodder just to get on the career ladder were suddenly told that full employment was going to be a priority for the next Labour government.

Imagine what our precarious, tough-as-nails generation could achieve if it was provided with the kind of cultural opportunities the post-war baby boomers enjoyed.

Swans lunacy