Michael Gira of Swans has just made a post on Facebook detailing various elements regarding the future of Swans, and Gira himself.
Probably most importantly for Swans fans is that Gira has written the songs for the next Swans album, though no other concrete details have been released yet. He hopes to begin recording the album in March of next year, so fans may be able to look forward to a new release within 2019.
He will be performing many of those songs, along with some pre-existing Swans songs, on an acoustic solo tour across the West Coast, and a gig in Brooklyn. Longtime Swans guitarist Norman Westberg will reportedly be opening these shows, with experimental singer-songwriter Carla Bozulich gracing the Los Angeles gig.
As announced before, Gira will continue to release music under the Swans name, instead with a wide variety of musicians to form the “co.” of Gira and co. Swans has always been a project with a revolving lineup mentality, but post-The Glowing Man Swans may as well be an entirely new band with entirely new musicians. Gira has said that he will be gathering a multitude of musicians to create the new album and then form a touring lineup “culled” from the participants (as ominous as that sounds).
In regards to the musical content of the new album, Gira says that it will be lyrically driven, even going as far to say that some songs will include multiple pages worth of words each. Inevitably, he notes that this will necessitate a change in the approach to creating the arrangements compared to the drone-y, noise rock approach of The Seer, To Be Kind, and The Glowing Man. Gira notes that he is not yet sure where the band will head after that, but he concedes that it was “time to move on.”
As usual, the band will be doing a fundraiser package to help fund the new record, but details for that are yet scarce. At the solo shows will be available a limited edition double LP of some narrative solo cuts, titled I Am Not This, so fans may be able to pick that up if they are able to attend.
Check out the full (incredibly long) post below.
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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