Swans: Birth Ritual

Earlier this year, Swans released the final album in their current iteration, entitled  Birthing.

The group’s 17th LP overall, the material contained within this double album was largely conspired during the Swans tour of 2023-2024, working off songs Michael Gira had written in his home office that evolved over the course of that yearlong trek.

“I’m blessed to have such a stellar group of musicians to work with live,” says Gira, “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.”

The lineup — comprised of Kristof Jahn, Dana Schechter, Larry Mullins, Phil Puleo, Christopher Pravdica and Norman Westerberg — close out this chapter of Swans with seven epic songs spanning nearly two hours that continues to see this combination oscillate between beauty and brutality that converge on the listener’s senses.

Having just come off a month-long tour in support of Birthing, Rock & Roll Globe caught up with Gira — who will continue to create under the Swans name “as long as I’m able” — to ask him some questions about this new chapter in his near-45 year career.

Birthing is available now in a variety of formats, including triple vinyl (in a brown chipboard sleeve), a 2CD set (in a brown chipboard digipak) and, of course, digital.

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 from Gira’s 2022 solo tour: I Wonder If I’m Singing What You’re Thinking Me To Sing.

 

You wrote a lot of this material for Birthing on the road, from what I understand. What is it like writing on the road versus when you are stationary at home or in the studio?

That’s a slight misunderstanding. I write the songs on acoustic guitar at home. I play them endlessly once they’re written, dreaming about how they’ll sound when arranged with the band. Then, in rehearsals, they’re transformed well above and beyond what I’d anticipated, due to the stellar commitment and talent and imagination of the musicians with whom I work. For this current album, the songs were played over a year of touring and they evolved significantly each night, eventually taking the shape of what you hear on the record. So a song that may have been 3 or 4 minutes played at home eventually morphed into a 20-30 minute piece on record.

 

How much did the material you wrote on the road evolve once you entered the studio to begin recording?

Well, as I say, the material evolves each night through improvisation and intuition. This record was recorded towards the end of the tour, so the material would have been largely unrecognizable if you witnessed it at the beginning of the tour and then at the end. Of course, in the studio there was also a great deal of re-arrangement and some shuffling of sections from place to place.

 

What is the meaning behind calling this collection Birthing?

It’s the end of this phase of Swans, so it seemed appropriate to call the album Birthing.

 

Birthing is said to be your last album with the Swans big band. What led you to wind down this aspect of the project’s sound?

Exhaustion, in every conceivable way. This coming tour will of course receive our full energy and commitment to performance. Most of the set is new, unrecorded material, which will itself doubtless transform through the course of the tour. But this is it. Things will be simpler after this.

 

How do you envision what a pared down Swans would be like? Are you looking forward to exploring this new territory under the Swans aegis?

It’s a fair question, but I don’t have a clear answer. Though I’m writing new songs for the next phase, I still have no idea what shape they will take. But yes, I’m looking forward to it. It’s good to be uncomfortable and to not be sure of oneself.

 

VIDEO: Swans “The Healers”

There doesn’t seem to be much room for improvisation in Swans. How do you keep it fresh?

Thank you for the question, but now I know that I’ve failed completely. Aside from the core songs, most of the material of the last 15 years was achieved through improvisation, then revision, improvisation, then revision, always looking for something that contains an unexpected magic. I had hoped (perhaps vainly) that would be intuited by the listener.

 

Do you see Swans as a linear development, or has it changed a lot over the years?

It has constantly changed and grown, of course. Otherwise, I would have long ago killed myself.

 

Did your youth in the revolutionary years of the French student movement have a great influence on you?

I have no idea what you’re talking about here. But I did discover the Situationists in the early punk days and had great sympathy for the idea of absolute personal freedom and looking at life as an act of willed imagination.

 

What are your thoughts on the way independent music has developed since you began Young God Records?

I don’t have any thoughts on the subject generally. I started my own record company (around 1989-90) because it was increasingly evident that no one else was interested and I had no choice. I figured out along the way how to do it, how to release and distribute my own music.

 

What are your music listening habits like these days? Do you listen to any new music?

My ears are exhausted most times and music feels like a personal attack. But I’ve come across a few things of course. The soundtracks of Bobby Krlic come to mind.