This new video by ††† came to my inbox last week, however it was quickly forgotten as email continues to become something that, except with a few exceptions (My marvelous correspondences with Joup's Chester Whelks to name one of those I cherish), just annoys the hell out of me. Fast forward to now where I sit writing in the starfuckers up the street from my crib, and as Intronaut's Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones) ends yet another iteration and I dig through my ipod looking for something to take the weight off this one album I've listened to about thirty times in the last twenty-four hours (don't want to wear it out) I realize it's been a while since I've injected myself with the beauty of The Deftones' Koi No Yokan. This in turn reminds me about ††† and thus, here... we... are.
No, it won't be as good as the comic. But yes, I think it will be good in its own right. And just what do I base this on? Well, I didn't hate X3 as much as most (over-stuffed yes but they killed my two least favorite characters, Scott and Charles, so I was happy). And then First Class surprised the hell out of me. And honestly, I'm digging the translation of these characters to the big screen. Marvel has lit the fire under everyone who has perpetuity rights over their franchises to actually try and make movies that are smart, inventive and continuity-based and really, DOFP along with the near rapid-fire announcements concerning 2016's Xmen: Apocalypse would appear to be great steps along the road that Fox really wants to be a X-Men movie universe that rivals Marvel's movie universe. They'll never get it as good, but it's sure fun to see them trying!
I'll admit, until 2012's The Seer I never had as strong an affection for a Swans record. Granted, there weren't a lot of their albums I knew, primarily because, and this may sound a little goofy, but at some point ten years ago or so I purchased the reissue of Cop/Young God/Greed/Holy Money and honestly, it scares me to this day. There is a malevolence that hangs over that record that really gets under my skin. I liken it to watching Silence of the Lambs - Lambs is an amazing piece of cinema that I love just for its craft, but the actual tone of the film - while perfect for the story - puts me in touch with one of the darker, more perverse nooks of the human psyche and I simply cannot go there very often. The same is true of SE7EN, which I love even more for its craft but which tends to absolutely demolish me, each one of my meager three viewings of that particular film sending me on a spiral of paranoid, hate and frustration that takes a few days to recover from. Now, the fact that filmmakers could do that to me with images and sound on celluloid either means I take movies waaaay too seriously or that they are extremely powerful examples of the art; I tend to interpret this as the latter but also know in my heart that it is actually more of a combination of both. The same is true of that early Swans stuff. I sought it out because I had read what an influence they were on Justin K. Broadrick and upon initial listening attempts to Cop/Young God/Greed/Holy Money I saw the influence, but I also caught a glimpse of a hell that seared my psyche and thus have only sporadically gone back to make new attempts at desensitizing myself enough to fully embrace those records.
And then there's the question if I should try to desensitize myself, but I'll leave that to a later day.
All that said Michael Gira and contributors have definitely refined the band with age. Despite my emotional handicap to the old music I've kept up on Swans as a cultural cornerstone and have ear marked the many iterations the group has gone through over the years. The Seer was a record that didn't make my best of list in 2012 because I didn't hear it until the very first days of 2013 and upon hearing it immediately thought that it would probably have ranked in at #2 on that just-published list at the time. The Seer is... all encompassing; a micro-verse in a record's form and something of a journey that I like taking on a somewhat regular basis. These are no longer the bowels of hell Swans take me to, merely some of the more... colorful suburbs of those fantastic realms.
According to the mighty Brooklyn Vegan Swans newest record, To Be Kind, is out on May 13th via Young God. I'll definitely not be waiting until January, 2015 to purchase it.
I took today off from work to celebrate my day of birthing with a few extra hours of that ever-disappearing natural resource we all take for granted - Sleep. When I woke up around 8:30 AM (yeah, that's sleeping in four whole hours for me) a text came through from Mr. Brown that informed me Oderus Urungus, the lead-singer of Gwar, had died yesterday.
Via Brooklyn Vegan. So good to hear this new music from a band I had actually kind of lost track of for a while. There's a lot of new textures I getting from this new album thus far. Some Cold Wave elements fused to the bones of psyche-out, run through their Rough Trade/Factory influence, yet all tempered with some exemplary pop flourishes.
