'I'm no stranger to failure, and I'm aware it can arrive at any
minute--as it often has. You have to keep things close to your chest and
be aware of what's really important: the work, not everything around it.
If you have faith in the work, then the people will come ... it's an
artistic imperative, it has nothing to do with public perception or
career or any of that crap. The name, Swans, it's synonymous with who I
am, but it's how it's achieved and it's achieved by people--those people
need to have total commitment to making this sound and to making it
utterly incisive and uncompromising. The work is everything and it has
to--at least at the time--appear, to me, to be stellar. That's the
prerequisite. It's an intangible thing where it really speaks and has
some truth within it.' - Michael Gira
Over a span of some three and a half decades, Michael Gira's Swans have
risen from chaotic origins in the aftermath of New York's No Wave scene
to become one of the most acclaimed rock-orientated acts of recent
years. The 1980s' infamous 'loudest band on the planet' morphed
repeatedly until collapsing exhausted, broken, and dispirited in the
late 1990s.
Swans returned triumphantly in 2010 to top end-of-year polls and achieve
feted status among fans and critics alike as the great survivors and
latter-day statesmen of the underground scene. Throughout, Gira's desire
has remained to create music of such intensity that the listener might
forget flesh, get rid of the body, exist as pure
energy--transcendent--inside of the sound.
Through these pages, the musicians responsible tell the tale of one of
the most significant bands of the US post-punk era. Drawing on more than
125 original interviews, Swans: Sacrifice And Transcendence is the
ultimate companion to Swans and their work from the 1980s to the present
day.
