Review of the Week: Swans - Live Rope

 

Calliope Music Review of the Week

Swans - Live Rope

Breaking the Barrier Between Brain and Universe

 

   In the endless expanse of matter and molecule, sound begins to usher its influence in thin wavelets and gentle heat. It reaches the ear of man stupendously fast, unleashing its undying influence subject to the crude interpretations of the brain.

The most provocative and influential of these interpretations is that of music. There is a swirling notation; a rhythm, that captivates the ear like no other. Michael Gira and his Swans are a group that understands this ear-to-universe connection on a comprehensive level. Enter Live Rope, an amalgam of the most fundamental interpretations of rhythm and music, turning over the barrier between brain and spirit in the process.

The 148-minute live album (182 minutes for the CD edition) is a Brobdingnagian effort, empowering the group's palatial Post-Rock compositions with the tortured spirits of Gothic Rock and the brutal improvisation of Totalism and Noise. The sound is difficult to grasp but in essence, it is a calling: a gruesome proposition of rhythm to a higher power that controls the concepts of life and death.

Gira conducts the band in gradually building progressions, allowing dirty acoustics, exotic taishōgoto, creeping woodwinds, and synthesized drones to foster a grisly ambiance. Often abruptly, the group breaks the atmosphere into fragments as apocalyptic walls of elephantine guitar, smashing drum sets, and Earth-shattering bass boil a heavy smoke atop Gira's possessed shouts. Never withering, only weaving, the great fortifications of sound ascend as church keys, buzzy Mellotron, and Gothic choir sweep in from above. Although there is not always an equal balance between ambiance and noise, the minimalist beginnings give room for Gira's bloodthirsty verse to fester before being crushed by monstrous whirring and increasingly wicked ornamentations.

It is a sound and tempo that has never quite been accomplished before; A black hole that sucks one into the tortured headspace of Michael Gira. In his shamanistic howling, callous narratives of birth and death appear. These words are a call for understanding as much as they are a declaration of giving oneself back into the space they were created. Gira describes a parasite siphoning the lifeblood of its creator, weakening in body but growing in connectedness. It is a vague and primitive tale but a powerful summoning of spirit.

As much as the record's brilliant and all-encompassing soundscape captivates throughout, a limitless runtime combined with extreme levels of clangor can exhaust any dedicated listener. This, and the focus on environment over established rhythm often make the sound more abstract and less memorable compared to the band's previous endeavors into "Big Music." Thus is the cost of a pure and uncompromised approach, one that may very well be necessary for accomplishing such an impressive and commanding impression.

In the end (if there is one), Live Rope sunders convention, stripping back music into its rudimentary elements. While at times overly arduous and lacking one single grip, the record is an unparalleled translation of body, mind, and spirit through the reigns of rhythm and vibration. The record itself presents a rope to climb, one that burns the flesh of hands that slip but bestows a momentous breakthrough for those who reach the top.

Best Tracks: Rope -- The Hanging Man -- Birthing

9/10

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