Text by: Gabriel Mendes
Swans takes on many forms. Since its founding in 1982, the band has constantly reinvented itself and adapted its sound over the decades in an exercise of self-fidelity to Michael Gira , and genres in a tireless process.
It's difficult to define the group, which has featured nearly 30 different musicians across all its lineups and explores genres such as post-rock, industrial, noise, and post-punk. The band's most recent phase (following a hiatus that ended in 2010, with four albums released, some of which were critically acclaimed) has brought new sonic experimentation compared to the band's beginnings.
In Leaving Meaning, released in October , Gira decided to break with the lineup that accompanied Swans between 2010 and 2017, creating a rotation of musicians for future projects. The idea is to identify a more suitable profile of artists (based on their musical and personal character) according to the concepts and sounds of each composition.
“In collaboration with me, the musicians, through their personalities, skills, and tastes, contribute greatly to the organization of the material. They are all people whose work I admire and whose company I personally appreciate,” the composer comments in the press release announcing the band's latest project.
Wikimetal spoke with the vocalist about the new album. Check it out below.
Wikimetal: I wanted to start by talking about creative processes.
Michael Gira: Sure, I don't know exactly how I can answer that, but here goes (laughs).
WM: Each album proposes a different atmosphere, accompanied by a series of unique images. Does the theme always reflect a present state of mind? Or do you create a kind of persona to compose?
MG: That's a good question. I generally don't see songs, and I think we're talking lyrically, as being about me in any way. Of course, my memories and thoughts are there, but I don't feel like it's directly about me. I try to create a situation, or a place where the listener can experience something.
WM: And do you piece it together or do you plan everything in a complete way? Thinking, for example, about 30-minute songs .
MG: It's a process of discovery, of course I take huge notes before going to the studio, and also some sort of charts of where things might go. But when I start working with other human beings, who are creative, talented and full of ideas, usually some pre-programmed concepts fall away and new things emerge, and then I start shaping things in ways that make sense to me.
WM: Regarding the choice of repetitions in the track structure, what is the origin of this decision?
MG: It's not an aesthetic choice that I need to "fulfill," for me, changing is kind of like "cheating" (laughs). I'm interested in how things develop over time around a central rhythmic structure. I'm generally not interested in constantly changing chords or backing tracks to get lots of variations in a song. I work a lot with dynamics and changes in orchestration, but as you said, there's something central that opens up in other areas.
WM : Are there any plans to return to working on other releases besides Swans with Young God Records ? Do you feel free having your own record label?
MG: Yes, I definitely feel free. I'm not sure if anyone would be interested in me. So I try to create my own situation, and I feel very grateful to have an audience that is interested in the music. Regarding other artists on the label, at a certain point I felt that it was demanding too much of me as a creative person who makes their own art and music. And financially it was something I couldn't sustain.
WM: When and how do you work on other creations besides Swans?
MG: Ten years ago I decided that Swans was me and I was Swans. And everything I would do musically would be Swans. I had another group called Angels of Light , which didn't do very well, I thought it was musically good, but I decided that Swans was where I would put my efforts and I will keep it that way.
WM : The process of change is a very present characteristic in the band's history. How does this constant metamorphosis alter the creative process?
MG Bob Dylan lyric that says, "He who is not busy being born is busy dying," so I consider evolution very important. And I don't even know why. I just have no interest in doing the same thing over and over again. I think music changes organically over time. I found some elements in this last project that will be seeds for a next one, so I'll keep them and work on them to create something new.
WM : What does Leaving Meaning mean to you?
MG: Music involves contradictory statements that exist at the same time as truths are being told. I'm interested in what happens before these "meanings" or in the space between them. So that's why I chose it as the album title; it's something that has preoccupied me in the recent past.
WM : I was very interested in the choice of musicians who were part of Leaving Meaning, from everyone who collaborated on Angels of Light to Ben Frost and Anna von Hausswolff . I'd like to know how that selection process went and what it felt like to work with artists you admire and haven't worked with before.
MG: It's a blessing. I feel very grateful. It's great to work with such talented people who help make what I wrote something bigger than it originally was. People like the von Hausswolff sisters added so much to the musical process, and Ben Frost, as you mentioned, is an excellent composer with enormous sonic sensitivity, and also the group that participated in two of the songs ( The Necks ) and formed this incredible combo. It's great to work with different people.
WM : How do you think the next tour will be and the format of the performances, with this new group?
MG: I don't know! I have some sounds in my head that I'm exploring with this new group, but we need to get together and see how we're going to do it. It won't be like the album, I wouldn't want that, I want to do something different.
WM: The track “ What Is This? ” caught my attention, especially the ending, because of a strange feeling of chaotic, cathartic hope. Could you comment a bit on this song?
MG: I wasn't very happy with the result of this track. As you said, it sounds a bit positive and hopeful, perhaps a new direction to follow. It started as a melody accompanied by a guitar and a series of questions about language and consciousness, and I suppose the final chorus sounds like "questions that cannot be answered".
WM: How to stay hopeful, active, and above all, in a constant process of reinvention?
MG : Well, I'm certainly not a spiritual guide. But something I constantly encounter, even when the world seems so dark and confusing, is that the simple fact of being alive is an incredibly strange and magical experience, and if you can take a step back from personal projections about who you are, the meaning of the world, or how you think things should be, and experience the strangeness of simply existing, you can find something seductive and rewarding.
Listen to Leaving Meaning below.
