Only the other day, on writing about the new album, ‘The Beggar’, I commented that the mood was altogether mellower than previously. Consequently, I had wondered how this would affect the sound on the attendant tour. I had read in the past – with some incredulity – that they had been crushingly loud way back when touring ‘The Burning World’, but again, there’s something quite different about ‘The Beggar’.
Despite no longer being a member of the band, former guitarist Norman Westberg provides tonight’s support, playing a set of the deep guitar drone which features on his recent solo albums. He chews hum and plays for 45 continuous minutes, the set marked by three runs through of a large egg-timer. The sound shift through drone reverberation to undulations to a single tearing chord, and he creates a thick, dense sonic cloud.
Swans are on after a hyperswift turnaround, and Michael Gira is not happy. He’s not happy with the lighting: it’s too dark. No, it’s too bright. And something’s wrong with the sound of his guitar. Yet they still manage to start a few minutes ahead of schedule, a slow build centred around Gira’s acoustic guitar. So far, so gentle, and apart from bassist Christopher Pravdica and keyboardist / guitarist Dana Schechter (who previously featured as a member of Angels of Light), the six-piece band are seated. The stage at The Belgrave is not small, but the immense backline means they’re cramped into tiny spaces with barely room for Gira to wave his arms. This, he does a lot, conducting the band to direct levels and the interplay between the instruments, and before long, and seemingly from nowhere, the sound has surged to the force of a hurricane. The first three songs are segued to make for a continuous half-hour of wave upon wave of heavy, yawning drones and monumental sustained crescendos.
Observing the interplay from the front row, it becomes apparent just how much of this tempest comes from Kristof Hahn’s lap-steel, and he plays it with like he’s fighting an untamed beast, grimacing and tensing his leg with a foot on the cross of the stand.
As has been the case since their 2010 return, Swans songs are never truly ‘finished’: the released studio versions are evolutions of the bare-bones demos Gira sketches out and often releases as CDs to raise funds for the recording of the album; the songs evolve further during rehearsals, and continue to mutate as the tour progresses. At one point, off-mic, Gira asks Hahn if he’s done something different with the chords, and compliments him on his choice. “I like it when you think,” he says. He’s smiling now.
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Occasionally popping Fisherman’s Friends, Gira is in good voice, his deep, cavernous tones filling the room. But both vocals and drums became buried in the peaks of the most punishing crescendos – and in those peaks, it felt as though we were being blown off the planet. The experience is exultant, and also bewildering: it has a physicality that goes far beyond the displacement of air from speakers. Yet for that, it doesn’t seem real, it’s like a dream or an out of body experience, one where you imagine you’re being beaten from every angle and yet at the same time, are simply observing something from another plane.
The set’s eight songs are drawn out for a full two hours, and the intensity is different this time around from previous shows I’ve attended: whereas previous occasions the sound had felt like being submerged in a warm tank of water, quite unexpectedly, tonight feels altogether more raw somehow, the sound more abrasive.
Even the quiet acoustic opening to ‘No More of This’, rather than offering respite, is utterly ear-blasting, and each time you think they’ve hit peak volume, Gira raises his arm higher, shakes his hand more vigorously, and from nowhere, the sound grows to new heights.
Towards the end, they hold a single explosive chord for minutes, and this surely is the climax… it subsides, Hahn cooly takes a comb from his pocket and restores his hair’s slickness. And then they’re building the next tsunami, Hahn applies the comb to the strings of his lap-steel, and everything is roaring simultaneously. Gira is on his feet, waving his arms in big, sweeping moves, as if drawing greater and greater volume with each gesture. And then, abruptly, it stops. I feel myself sag, exhausted but exhilarated. There remains no other band on earth like Swans.
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