The Swans were just a band among the highly praised unknown others for me. Of course I heard about them many times, and the opinions were in superlatives. A bad word there wasn’t! So I didn’t care. There were many great bands, unrecognized by others. The Swans came and went often, I stayed at home.
Everything was very all right until the day before yesterday. That day I have begun to edit a long article in reference with Swans. In the beginning I didn’t want to listen to them, but finally yesterday evening I have done it first time ever. It was the brand new album „To Be Kind”. Frightful long tracks, some of them have strange titles. One of them dedicated to the legendary bluesman Howlin’ Wolf! Among the musicians: the new alt-pop diva, St. Vincent; founder of Cop Shoot Cop, Phil Puleo; a black soul from the Canadian call center hell, Al Spx (Cold Specks); Bill Rieflin (Minisrty, RevCo, Lard, KMFDM, Pigface, REM). Come what may, play!
Since I have done it three times. I can speak only in superlatives about it. In the first place their heavy psych-ritual music came Foetus and Lydia Lunch to my mind. In the second place: Neurosis and Nine Inch Nails.
The summit is „Bring the Sun”, a 34 minutes long little symphony about the Black Napoleon, Toussiant L’ouverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution. Haiti was French colony at that time. The revolt rose against the slavery in 1791 under the impact of French Revolution. It was successful, but the free and equal blacks and mulattos had begun to massacre each others without delay in fraternal concord. Toussiant L’ouverture was captured before the final victory, and died at the White Napoleon’s prison in France in 1803.
Some bad words (for security reasons): „She Loves Us” become tedious during its 17 minutes. So if you are in a show, this is the best time to go to pee, buy a beer and smoke something. For instance in this fall on their European tour,