A preview of Birthing produced by Gira and recorded at Soundfabrik Berlin can be heard via the recently released song I Am A Tower . Gira shared insight into the new album as well as insight into the future of Swans: The material contained in this album was largely developed over the course of a yearlong Swans tour during 2023 2024 The Healers I Am a Tower Birthing Guardian Spirit Rope and Away then recorded and further orchestrated and rearranged in the studio. Two pieces were created and performed in the studio Red Yellow The Merge . In all cases the material began with me sitting in my office with an acoustic guitar singing and dreaming about what would become of these skeletal songs. I m blessed to have such a stellar group of musicians to work with live and through improvisation endless revisions and an intensity of focus in performance not to mention endurance over the course of time the music morphed into what you generally hear on this collection. This album coupled with the recent live release Live Rope constitutes my final foray as producer impresario into the all consuming sound worlds that have been my obsession for years. We ll do a final tour in this mode towards the end of 2025 then that s it. After that Swans will continue so long as I m able but in a significantly pared down form. Hints of that direction can be found in a few moments on the current album. In the meantime my hope is that the music provides a positive and fertile atmosphere in which to dream. Birthing pre orders https: younggodrecords.com collections frontpage products birthing preorder are available now with the album available on triple vinyl in a brown chipboard sleeve double CD in a brown chipboard digipak and digital formats. Initial pressings of the triple vinyl and CD editions include a bonus DVD featuring Swans Live 2024 Rope The Beggar a concert film directed by Marco Porsia from the last Swans U.S. tour plus Christopher Nicholson s documentary on Gira s 2022 solo tour entitled I Wonder If I m Singing What You re Thinking Me To Sing. Michael Gira founded Swans in 1982. Initially known for their brutal high volume onslaughts of sound and the extreme abject imagery of Gira s lyrics and his thundering vocals Swans underwent a series of startling transformations over the next 15 years. After early punishing albums like Filth and Cop they explored proto industrial rock with Greed atmospheric and martial elements on Children of God 1987 acoustic meditations on The Burning World 1989 and grand melody dense sonic whirlwinds with White Light from the Mouth of Infinity 1991 and Love of Life 1993 before becoming more dissonant and sharp edged with The Great Annihilator 1994 . Finally the ultimate statement of that epoch of Swans Soundtracks for the Blind combined all of these elements across well over two hours of music. Gira disbanded the group shifting focus to Angels of Light and his Young God Records label fostering artists like Devendra Banhart and Akron Family. In 2010 he revived Swans with My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky to ecstatic critical response followed by The Seer 2012 and To Be Kind 2014 with both earning critical and commercial success leading to sold out tours and multiple Billboard chart placements. The Glowing Man 2017 marked the end of that Swans incarnation with Leaving Meaning 2019 and The Beggar 2023 continuing Gira s work with an evolving lineup.
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