From: Greg Clow <ecurrent@zooid.guild.org>
Subject: Re: swans discography
X-To: MASON JONES
Organization: The Zoo of Ids
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 14:20:00 GMT

mason@dante.uucp (Mason Jones) writes:
>buch@iesd.auc.dk (Henrik Buch Pedersen) writes:
>: 
>: I would appriciate if anybody could post a swans discography
>
>I've got everything up to when I decided they started to suck, in
>my own personal opinion.  This includes:
>
>    "Swans" EP
>    "Filth"
>    "Cop"
>    "Raping a Slave" EP
>    "Public Castration is a Good Idea"
>    "Greed"
     "Time is Money (Bastard)" EP
     "Holy Money" mini-LP
     "A Screw (Holy Money)" EP
>    "Children of God"
     "The Burning World"
     "White Light From the Mouth of Infinity" 
     "Love of Life"
>    "Body to Body Job to Job"

I've added those that Mason chose to ignore.  There are also two live 
discs: "Feel Good Now", which was recorded during the "Children of God" 
tour, and another (the name of which escapes me) that was recorded around 
the time of "Greed"/"Holy Money".



>The first EP was self-titled, and has a very different lineup than
>any of the others.  It's sort of early New York No Wave sound, very
>fast.  "Filth" added a heavy percussive element and slowed things
>down some; it's one of my favorite albums of all time.

"Filth" and the first EP have been re-released on one CD.

>"Cop" slowed
>things down even more, and got much more brutal.  The "Raping a Slave"
>EP is superb.  In the next month or two they're supposed to re-issue
>"Cop" on CD with that EP tacked on.

It just came out last week (along with another re-release I mention 
below).

>I believe the "Public..." double 
>came out before "Greed" but I can't be sure.  Anyway, it's so slow
>that it warps time.  Painfully slow, pounding, superb cathartic stuff.
>It'll make you hate everyone in the world.

I had thought that "Public..." was a live disc, but this leads me to 
believe that it's not.  Clarifaction, Mason?

>"Greed" lost some of the 
>power they had previously, partially due I feel to the addition of Jarboe
>on keyboards.  However, the "Holy Money" single is pretty superb.

Some oddities about the CD releases of this "era" of Swans material - 
when these were originally released, the four "$" releases (GREED LP, 
"Time is Money" EP, HOLY MONEY mini-LP, "A Screw" EP) were also available 
on two CD's, one collecting GREED and "Time is Money", and the other 
collecting HOLY MONEY and "A Screw".  However, these two discs are now out 
of print, and a recent re-release has GREED and HOLY MONEY on one disc and 
ignores the two EP's from the era.  Kind of annoying.


>"Children of God" was the beginning of the end; half of the album sounds
>like Skin, and the other half was decent grunge but nowhere near as
>powerful as they used to be.  I skipped everything after that except
>for the recent "Body..." CD, which has a bunch of old material.  The
>sound quality varies, but it's still really good stuff.

To fill in what Mason skipped:

THE BURNING WORLD was their first and only "big label" release (on MCA, 
since deleted).  It's the only Swans release that I've heard that I really 
didn't like.  It's very mellow, but not "good" mellow (like their later 
stuff). 

WHITE LIGHT... and LOVE OF LIFE are very similar in tone and style to each 
other - very mellow, but with power lurking underneath (esp. on L.O.L.).  
I agree with Mason that the raw force of the earlier material isn't there, 
but I still enjoy it.


>For completists, I should note that there was an EP by Circus Mort
>which is basically pre-Swans Swans, similar to the first Swans EP.

And there is also the following:

By SKIN (Gira and Jarboe):
"Blood, Women, Roses" LP
"Shame, Humility, Revenge" LP
"The World of Skin" dbl-LP  (actually a repackaging of the above two LP's 
                             for the US market)
"Ten Songs From Another World" LP

Fans of the "new" Swans material will enjoy this.  Very, VERY mellow.


JARBOE released a solo album last year, but I know little about it.  



Greg





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