I’ve never been religious. Spiritual, maybe, but never religious. Not to say religion has never been a part of my life; I went to Christian daycare when I was younger and attended all the obligatory masses for various Christianity-based holidays. But without the reinforcement of religion in my upbringing, or a major precipitating event leading to my conversion, it just never became a part of who I am (much to most of my extended family’s hubris).
Last summer I attended Chicago’s Pitchforkfest, mostly on the premise of getting to see Lil B and Swans perform on the same stage on the same weekend. Both of these performances had a very special air to them; something you could almost call ‘religious’, but in two vastly different ways. Lil B’s Sunday afternoon performance came complete with the cult-like worship that I can really only compare with Beatlemania, except on a much smaller, more #based scale, his online omnipresence carrying over remarkably IRL. When he stepped onto the stage, the masses gathered in pink bandannas erupted into euphoria, screaming along to every half remembered lyric and cooking their asses off. It was a beautiful 45 minutes or so, where all the post-irony that surrounds the adoration of Lil B was stripped away, leaving a harmonic positivity that no one was excluded from. It was religious in a beautiful, fanatic sort of way. Swans…well, Swans was different.
Swans always had a reputation for their demanding live shows, but it wasn’t until the Reswanaissance*, the current period of their reformation that began back in 2010, that Swans’ live sets became the ultimate iteration of the band. After hearing countless rumours of their powerful live show, and coming off the release of 2012’s The Seer, easily one of my favourite records of that year, it’s safe to say I was pretty fucking stoked to finally get to witness Swans’ majesty in person, outdoors on a beautiful summer day for that matter. It may have just been me, but I felt an almost electric vibration in the air as the band set up…the sort of atmospheric excitement that usually preludes a devastating storm. I can’t imagine what it must have looked like to the uninitiated, six or seven grizzly old men, half in cowboy hats, packing the stage with an air of solemn reserve and mostly unrecognizable instruments. Me, I was shitting my pants.
What happened when Michael Gira finally took the stage and began the show/sermon, I couldn’t tell you with 100% certainty. About ten? twenty? a hundred? minutes into it, I pretty much lost all sense of everything. When Swans perform, you see, they don’t play ‘songs’ in the conventional sense that you expect from most live acts. Instead, Gira stands in the middle of the stage, acting more as an organic conductor than a bandleader, guiding the rest of the band through musical passages that shrink to molecular size and swell to vast, planet-destroying monoliths. The only thing I really knew to expect from the show was that it would be loud, and good God, was I ever right in that sense. The Swans experience is all about ego-death, and they achieve this through extremely, extremely loud and repetitive passages that aim to wipe all thought clean from your mind. One of the most misunderstood parts about Swans is that they seek out transcendence through their music, not the horror that most people assume due to their fairly dark image. I spoke earlier about not being religious due to never having any sort of precipitating event leading to religious appraisal. That being said, that hot July afternoon, I found myself deep in the throes of religious mania. At one point in the set, I vaguely recall shaking violently for a solid ten minutes or so, completely lost in a locked groove that Gira had conjured out of his band, only snapping out of it when the groove gave way to a shrieking drone that knocked me – and probably half of Chicago – back to my sense….only to have them completely drowned out a few minutes later. And throughout this all, Gira stood above us all like some sort of Old Testament prophet, speaking in tongues and guiding us all through his evolving hymns of noise and chaos. I went away from that show – totally speechless for a solid half hour – with a fundamental understanding not only of religion, but of power.
The reason I’m trying so hard to relay this experience unto you is because the purpose of the modern recorded music that Swans produce is an attempt to translate the experience of the live show onto tape. That expression gets thrown around a lot these days, but with Swans, it’s more than just ‘trying to sound live’. It’s about experiencing the ebb and flow of the music, and the genius intuition that lies behind it. At this point in their career, Swans have distilled the truest essence of ‘post-rock’, making their peers such as GY!BE and Neurosis seem almost juvenile in comparison (almost). To Be Kind is the pinnacle of their accomplishments, and possibly the pinnacle of the genre itself. The Seer was a masterpiece, for sure, one of the greatest comeback albums ever, period. But at times it felt very scattershot, connected only loosely over it’s two hour running time. To Be Kind maintains this epic lengthiness, but everything feels cohesive. The Seer was such a towering achievement that it felt impossible to follow up, but then again, it’s easy to underestimate the genius and power of Michael Gira.
Some credit here is due to John Congleton, who produced the album along with Gira. Congleton’s been having a pretty stellar year, producing acclaimed albums by everyone from Cloud Nothings to St. Vincent, but I have a feeling this is the record he’ll look back on and be the proudest in having a hand to create. It baffles me how Gira and Congleton managed to recreate the sheer noisy catharsis of the live set without all out flattening their studio in the process (though I read that Gira wanted to bring actual horses into the studio for a take, so I guess they almost managed to). All the different layers and elements of the songs on To Be Kind are clearer than on The Seer and they are given their own space to grow and breathe, which is of utmost importance when you’re making this kind of music. It’s very difficult to pull off this level of sound without everything becoming muddled, so the mere recording of this album is a massive feat in and of itself. I remember being swept away by live version of album centerpiece “Bring The Sun” when I experienced it live last summer, and the version committed to record is every bit as hypnotic and overpowering on tape as it was in concert. Just TRY to sit still during the almost 15 minute long build up. If it doesn’t force you into a swaying, holy hypnosis, you have no soul and ought to be ashamed of yourself, because you’re missing the fuck out.
Whereas the content on The Seer was reflective of that record’s title and cover art – a menacing glimpse into the void – To Be Kind carries an almost feminine tenderness within its music, a notion reinforced by the vast array of female guest vocalists and song titles (I’m not going to speak on its album art because if Gira claims to not even fully understand it then there’s no chance in hell that I ever will). Instead of raucous noise epics attempting to sonically interpret the limitations of the self and insignificance of it all, To Be Kind is composed of almost bluesy meditations on, well, meditation itself, with Gira chanting hypnotic mantras about God, mankind, and the universe that function less as lyrics and more as spiritual signifiers to help guide the listener on their journey. It’s an enchanting, audacious experience that demands your full attention for its entire two hour running time, so you may literally have to schedule it in when you want to listen to this album. In this A.D.D. day and age, To Be Kind is a gleeful fuck you to bite sized culture, and a powerful reminder that the best things in life are worth logging off and zoning out to.
By the time the last pulverizing chord of the final and title track rings out, the ensuing silence feels well earned, the way I imagine the sunlight and cool air of the outside world must feel after stepping out of a particularly intense Sunday mass. The type where the pastor seems ten feet tall as he screams his sermons down upon the crowd, and half of the mass seems to experience some sort of spiritual seizure as His words take hold of that higher part of you. I’m not religious, but To Be Kind is church, and Gira is God. And the power of Christ has never been so compelling.
* I came up with this term. Don’t wear it out.
Rating: 5/5
Ridiculous Made Up Genre of the Day: noise blues hymns