Swans
Public Castration Is a Good Idea

Not just a simple live album.

More of an experience, I would say, and not one of the most pleasant, unless you are incurable masochists. Musically speaking, I have to admit I fall into the aforementioned category. I'm curious to know how far I can push myself, how much I can endure, how much I can challenge my ears, my head (and in this case even my stomach). Listening to Public Castration is a Good Idea is nothing but self-inflicted punishment, one of the truly painful kinds, even for those who have been navigating the turbulent waters of extreme music for a long time and consider themselves ready for anything. One is never entirely ready for a fierce blow, devoid of even the slightest compromise, like the one that an album of this kind lands on you.

8 tracks of pure hatred, disillusionment, deep disappointment, disgust towards humanity and towards one’s own body, one’s own soul. Michael Gira, the delirious frontman of Swans, condenses all his mal de vivre into this hallucinatory and surreal live document, recorded in multiple sessions in 1986. The listener is not granted a single moment of respite, and the sparse moments of calm turn out to be mere preludes to a subsequent, even more violent and annihilating explosion.

Swans stripped their music of every embellishment (already quite violent even in previous albums) and brought it back to the basics: their offering is brutal, arduous, discouraging but undeniably sincere. This is one of the truest works you’ll ever hear, whether you like it or not. And if you didn't like it (in the traditional sense of liking, I mean), it means the malevolent swans have hit the mark. 

Public Castration is a Good Idea represents the best synthesis of Swans' early musical period, although the eight tracks that are part of it have very little to do (lyrics aside) with the original songs. Each piece has been subject to a revisitation and deconstruction that has led to outcomes far removed from the studio albums: the length of each track is visibly increased, and the sound has become rougher, noisier, yet at the same time more stretched.

It’s all played out on the alternation between instrumental parts, teetering between industrial and noise, and the deviant sermons vigorously yelled by Gira. When he opens his mouth, he steals the show from everyone else, imposing his haunting presence and, if possible, casting an even darker shadow over the audience of devoted followers. His performance is chilling, goosebumps-inducing, especially when he introduces the track "Anything For You" with a deep, cavernous voice and a black mass-like intonation of HOOOOOOOLY. The moments of pure terror and disorientation are not missing and are present from the opener to the closing "Another You," with an intense crescendo of effects, distortions, and noises. Undoubtedly essential in this album is also the work done by the drums, sometimes slow and dragging, sometimes frantic and tribal, perfectly synchronizing with the obsessive litanies recited by the singer (it almost seems reductive to call him that!).

Standouts among other tracks are especially "Fool," which demonstrates how even a piano can be subservient to sonic terrorism, "A Screw," and "Coward," where Gira's voice distortion is taken to extreme consequences (recalling the terrifying experiments of David Tibet in the seminal "Nature Unveiled" by Current 93). (Not) recommend listening to it at night, it assumes a whole different flavor. The only downside is that you might not sleep peacefully.

Like much of the Swans' discography, this is one of those albums that redefine the concept of "heavy" music. Don't let it pass you by.