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Rating: Necessary Introduction:
there are albums, for each of us, that we could never describe and/or judge objectively. This is my least objective judgment for the album that I objectively consider the best I've ever heard.
Necessary Review:
After a career equally divided between great records, masterpieces, and absolute masterpieces, the Swans reach the end of the line. It's 1996. The group, by now, no longer exists in practice; there is only its leader, Michael Gira, a character as difficult as he is fascinating and tormented, one who seemed never to have enough to say; the group by now was him, and that's it. Even his own life and art partner Jarboe seemed almost cut off from the new incarnation of the band, limited to few actual appearances in the compositional phase, only 3 songs out of 26, and confined to backing vocals and keyboards in the others. For the leader, this album must have been something too important: the end of 15 years of various failures, of ideas and sacrifices, which never brought the group the hoped-for visibility results. Gira must have thought of writing the true testament of the Swans. There were too many ideas still in the drawer and too much urgency to throw them in everyone's face. We find all these ideas in almost two and a half hours of music, in this double CD which more than an album appears as a true stream of consciousness, as if the author wanted to say all at once everything that had remained inside all that time, almost wanting to rip with a single stroke the soul of the Swan from the body to show it naked to all, yes, to all those who wanted to see it as it really was. The operation was too delicate to entrust to doctors who knew the patient, and so Gira surrounds himself with session men, specialists, people truly able to carry out their task without interfering with personal sentiment on that of the author. The soul presented here is that of Gira, no doubt. The very interventions of Jarboe seem almost slips that sprang from Uncle Mike's own mind, on one side the absolute master of the Swans entity, on the other possessed by the Swans entity itself.
But, you might ask, and the music? The music is really the closest thing to an expression of the soul you could think of: layers upon layers of drones and keyboard carpets, found sounds, samples and dialogues taken from who knows which film or from which dusty archive act as the body to splendid and dilated ballads ("Helpless child", "The sound"), sudden electric assaults ("Yum-yab killers"), otherworldly techno ("Volcano"), raw experimentation ("I was a prisoner in your skull", "Animus"), deafening explosions ("All lined up", "Yrp"), almost classical openings ("How they suffer"), disturbed waltzes ("Red velvet wound"), assorted cacophonous drones ("I love you this much", "Surrogate drone"), brief acoustic interludes ("Fan's lament", "Blood section"). In short, as heterogeneous as you can imagine, without ever letting the work slip out of context or become dispersive, on the contrary, resulting in a disarming homogeneity.
There's no need to beat around the bush, we are faced with the Swans' magnum opus. Certainly, the most experimental, the most different, in some respects the most excessive and disturbing, but undoubtedly the truest, where the artist, having nothing left to prove and nothing to lose, expresses himself to the fullest and without restraints, without censorship, with the strength of wanting to end the career as he had begun, uncorrupted and incorruptible.
Necessary Conclusion:
Yes, I admit it, it's my favorite album of the band that I prefer among my favorites. If someone asked me for the most beautiful album of the Swans, I would certainly say "Children of god". But if someone asked me for the most beautiful album in the world, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment: "Soundtracks for the blind"!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
09 All Lined Up (04:48)
I SEE THEM ALL LINED UP, LIKE NAKED CHILDREN AT THE WALL. THEIR SKIN IS HANGING OFF IN SHEETS. EACH FACE IS PAINTED LIKE A WHORE. THEIR BLOOD IS SHINING IN THE SUN. THEIR WOUNDS ARE POWDERED WITH WHITE SALT. THEIR LIPS ARE SHAPING SILENT WORDS: I SEE MY NAME AS IT SPILLS OUT. I SEE THEM WALKING ON THEIR KNEES, LED IN A CHAIN BY LAUGHING GIRLS. I SEE THEM SUCKING ON THE DIRT, AS IF INHALING THE WHOLE WORLD. AND ONE BY ONE THEIR THROATS ARE CUT, AND EACH ONE SINGS HIS CHOKING SONG. AND EACH ONE SINGS HIS LULLABY, AND EACH ONE FALLS AND THEN HE'S GONE. AND I FEEL GOOD. YEAH, I FEEL FINE. AND I FEEL GOOD: I'VE BEEN WAITING FAR TOO LONG... I SEE THEIR BODIES IN THE PYRE, LEAKING BLACK SMOKE INTO THE FLAMES. AND ALL THE PEOPLE STAND AROUND, SHAPING LIPS INTO MY NAME. AND SOON THE SUN BEGINS TO SINK, BEHIND A WALL OF DIRTY AIR. I SEE THEIR BONES THERE IN THE PILE, AND TASTE THE SMELL OF BURNING HAIR. AND ALL THE CHILDREN HOWL FOR MILK. THE RAIN SPITS DOWN A MILLION KNIVES. I SEE YOU RUNNING THROUGH THE FIELD. I SEE YOU RUNNING FOR YOUR USELESS LIFE. I FEEL YOU CHOKING ON YOUR TONGUE, I FEEL YOUR BREATH ATTACK YOUR CHEST. THE DOGS ARE RIPPING AT YOUR FEET. I SEE YOU BLEEDING OUT YOUR HAPPINESS. AND I FEEL GOOD, YEAH I FEEL FINE. AND I FEEL GOOD: I FINALLY GOT BACK WHAT WAS ALWAYS, RIGHTFULLY, MINE.
12 Animus (10:42)
SOMEWHERE, THROUGH THE FROZEN FIELDS, SOMEWHERE, BENEATH YOUR PALE AND TENDER SKIN, LIES A HOUSE, ABSORBING FEAR AND PAIN - SOLAR, RED, CONTAINED - FEEDING ON MY DREAMS. SOMEWHERE COLD, INSIDE THE OPTIC WIRE, DOWN WHERE FINGERS AND SEMEN CRACK AND BLEED - THERE I WILL BE, WITH MY ARMS SPREAD OUT AND BROKEN, WAITING FOR YOUR BREATH, TO ANIMATE MY VEINS. WE'RE NOT ALONE: ALL OUR THOUGHTS ARE NUMBERED - MALIGNANT AND COLD, ANIMAL AND HUNGRY. BUT I WILL CONTAIN ALL, THAT EVER WAS OR WILL BE, THEN I'LL WATCH MY SKIN ERUPT, IN A SYMPHONY OF FLAMES - SCREAMING OUT YOUR NAME, SCREAMING OUT YOUR NAME... WHY CAN'T I HIDE INSIDE YOUR MALLEABLE, ELECTRIC FACE? YOU'D SUCK AWAY THE PAIN, AND SWALLOW DOWN MY SICKEST DREAMS. NOW MY BODY FEELS LIKE SNOW, SPILLING OUT THE SHATTERED SCREEN - WHERE WILL WE BE THEN, WHEN ALL THE FEAR AND BLOOD ARE GONE, DRAINED INTO ONE HUNDRED MILLION OPEN CHILDREN'S MOUTHS - SCREAMING OUT YOUR NAME, SCREAMING OUT YOUR NAME.
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