Marginally associated with the no wave scene at first, their original sound was slow and extremely heavy, with live performances that were often so brutal and physical that in a number of instances certain audience members were made ill, police were called and venues were shut down. This early physical sound is possibly best heard on the live album Public Castration Is A Good idea.
Their initial style shifted a little by the time Swans released seminal twin albums Greed and Holy Money. The music had sped up, at times being even more punishing than their earlier output. Drum machines and samples were slightly more prominent. Michael Gira was joined vocally by Jarboe which gave the band a broader sonic range. Tracks featuring Jarboe were often quieter, even pretty, acting as counterpoint to the more harrowing themes on the albums. Over time, this style would come to dominate Swans' output, although they somehow seem to have been able to make a strummed acoustic guitar seem as brutal as their earlier amped-up assaults. The lush instrumentation of their albums from the late 1980s and the 1990's anticipated the birth of post-rock.
Swans eventually broke up in 1997; Gira went on to release some solo work, later forming the band The Angels Of Light, who continue many of the themes and styles found in (later) Swans. Jarboe releases solo work and frequently works with other bands and artists; recently she released an album with Neurosis, a group clearly heavily influenced by Swans.
The influence of Swans upon the music world is profound. Across their 15 years of existence, the various styles they explored gave birth to grindcore (Napalm Death, Nasum) modern "cinematic" post-rock (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mono), and atmospheric sludge metal (Isis, Neurosis).
In January 2010, Michael Gira reactivated Swans and released a new album, My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky on September 2010, and the band simultaneously embarked on a world tour scheduled to last eighteen months. The band had been chosen by Portishead to perform at the ATP I'll Be Your Mirror festivals that they curated in July 2011 at London's Alexandra Palace and in September 2011 in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
On August 28, 2012, Swans released The Seer, a double-album running almost 2 hours in length. Frontman Michael Gira described the album as taking "30 years to make. It's the culmination of every previous Swans album as well as any other music I've ever made, been involved in or imagined. But it's unfinished, like the songs themselves. It's one frame in a reel. The frames blur, blend and will eventually fade." Describing the songwriting process, Gira said, "The songs began on an acoustic guitar, then were fleshed out with (invaluable) help from my friends, then were further tortured and seduced in the studio, and now they await further cannibalism and force-feeding as we prepare to perform some of them live, at which point they'll mutate further, endlessly, or perhaps be discarded for a while."
On May 12, 2014, Swans released their thirteenth LP, To Be Kind. Produced by Michael Gira and recorded by John Congleton. It received positive reception from critics which made the group continue to make more albums that have also have received positive reviews.
It was announced on July 22, 2015, that the band was releasing their fourteenth studio album, titled The Glowing Man. The album was released on June 17, 2016.
After The Glowing Man released, the band took a hiatus lasting nearly a year in 2017 and ending in 2018. The band released their fifteenth studio LP Leaving Meaning the next year. The same year, a documentary about Swans was released titled “Where Does A Body End?”.
In March 2021, Michael Gira released a tracklist of an upcoming Swans album, titled The Beggar. It was released on June 23, 2023.
Mother's Milk
Swans Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And I'll wait there beneath the mud
And forgotten dreams and disease
And what's the secret I'll drain from your soul
And sweet is the sugar I'll drink from your skull
And where is the wound that shines the blue light
And who is the dead man my body made love to last night
The above lyrics are from Swans's song "Mother's Milk." The song is a hauntingly beautiful and emotional piece that delves deep into the darker themes of life and death. The first two lines, "And I'll sleep in the sea, And I'll wait there beneath the mud," convey a sense of peacefulness and surrender to fate. It is as if the singer has accepted their death and is willing to lay down and rest forever.
The following lines, "And forgotten dreams and disease, And what's the secret I'll drain from your soul," suggest a sense of regret and reflection. As the singer is about to die, they are looking back on their life and what they could have done differently. The reference to "draining" a secret from someone's soul indicates a desire for understanding or closure before their inevitable end.
The lyrics "And sweet is the sugar I'll drink from your skull, And where is the wound that shines the blue light" are an unsettling image of death and decay. The personification of death as a sweet drink is a reminder that death is not always unpleasant. The image of the wound that shines with a blue light could symbolize a spiritual wound that transcends physical death.
The final line, "And who is the dead man my body made love to last night," is a stark reminder of the physicality of death. Even though the singer is dying, their body is still alive and holding onto physical desire. The line could also suggest a sense of guilt or remorse for past actions. Overall, the lyrics of "Mother's Milk" are a powerful exploration of the human experience of death.
Line by Line Meaning
And I'll sleep in the sea
I will rest eternally in the vast expanse of the ocean
And I'll wait there beneath the mud
My body will lay dormant underground, awaiting rebirth
And forgotten dreams and disease
Abandoned aspirations and illness plague my thoughts
And what's the secret I'll drain from your soul
I seek to extract hidden knowledge from your very being
And sweet is the sugar I'll drink from your skull
The euphoria of consuming your brain will be exquisite
And where is the wound that shines the blue light
I search for the source of the luminous injury you possess
And who is the dead man my body made love to last night
My physical form engaged in necrophilia with an unknown corpse
Contributed by Levi I. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Puppet Master
Jarboe has one of the most enchanting female voices ever....
bill smith
indeed.....very "folk music" type vibe she has
Szarzyniec Szczurzyński
She can do with her voice almost everything: from soft and delicate tone to devil's scream, from deep contralto to very high notes piercing your ears, from sweetness to total harshness, from ambience and atmosphere to sheer power, from impeccable melody to atonal noise, with all the ever-present emotions, constant will to experiment and all the way through many very different genres... She is one of her kind, a n a r t i s t .
Nick S
She's up there with Lisa Gerrard, Kate Bush and Liz Frazer IMO, but the most underrated of the artists I mentioned. Swans as a band are so incredibly multi-faceted!
Simon Mooijman
After jarboe left Gira ..swans were dead and stupid
Puppet Master
This is one of the best Jarboe songs.... :)
James Guillory, The Irascible Humanslayer
I'm actually crying holy fuck.
J. Prt.
Can that sound just be at the beginning of every song?
ChilledSpirit
Jarboe is a goddess
Adam
this sounds like a soundtrack to a cosmic horror movie