Im no stranger to failure, and Im aware it can arrive at any minuteas it often has. You have to keep things close to your chest and be aware of whats really important: the work, not everything around it. If you have faith in the work, then the people will come its an artistic imperative, it has nothing to do with public perception or career or any of that crap. The name, Swans, its synonymous with who I am, but its how its achieved and its achieved by peoplethose 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 toat least at the timeappear, to me, to be stellar. Thats the prerequisite. Its an intangible thing where it really speaks and has some truth within it. Michael GiraOver a span of some three and a half decades, Michael Giras Swans have risen from chaotic origins in the aftermath of New Yorks 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, Giras desire has remained to create music of such intensity that the listener might forget flesh, get rid of the body, exist as pure energytranscendentinside 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.
