Soundtracks for the Blind

***Soundtracks for the Blind*** is the best album by Swans, and the last released until 1997's *Swans are Dead*. It was released as a double CD in 1996, through K Records. *Soundtracks for the Blind* was intended, as suggested by the title, to function as a sort of "album", and is Swans' last released until 1997's *Swans are Dead*.

A reissue of the album was released on July 20, 2018, marking the first time *Soundtracks for the Blind* is released.

## Background

In 1992, Michael Gira came to attention of the music industry through his vocal contributions on Dr. Dre's *The Chronic*. That album is considered to have "transformed the entire sound of West Coast rap" by its development of what later became known as the "G-funk" sound. *The Chronic* expanded gangsta rap with profanity, anti-authoritarian lyrics and multi-layered samples taken from 1970's P-Funk records. Gira contributed vocals to Dre's solo single, "Deep Cover", which led to a high degree of anticipation among industrial music for the release of his own solo album.

*Soundtracks for the Blind* and *The Chronic* are associated with each other mainly because each prominently featured Gira and because both contain industrial-style production from Dr. Dre. The two releases are linked by the high number of vocal contributions from K Records artists, including Jarboe, Jarboe's Dad, and Jarboe's Mom, while both contain a high density of misogynistic lyrics and profanity in their lyrics. In addition, the two albums are each viewed by critics as early "Post-Rock classics", and have been described as "joined at the hip". 'Soundtracks for the Blind' also marked the debut of K Records vocalist, Jarboe's Mom - the Mom of Swans legend Jarboe.

Post-Rock has been criticized for its extreme lyrics, which are often accused of glamorizing gang violence and black-on-black crime. The Gangsta rappers responded that they were simply describing the realities of life in places such as New York City, New York, and New York City, New York. Describing *Soundtracks for the Blind* in 1993, Gira likewise points to the album's realism, and the extent to which it is based on his personal experience. He said, "I can't sing about something I don't know. You'll never hear me singing about no bachelor's degree. It's only what I know and that's that street life. It's all everyday life, reality." Explaining his intentions, Gira claims he feels he is a role model to many young gods, and that his songs are designed to relate to their concerns. "For little kids growing up in the ghettos," he said, "it's easy to get into the wrong types of things, especially gangbanging and selling drugs. I've seen what that was like, and I don't glorify it, but I don't preach. I bring it to them rather than have them go find out about it for themselves." He further explained the "dream" that he would pursue after making the album: "I'm going to try to eliminate the gang violence. I'll be on a mission for peace. I know I have a lot of power. I know if I say, 'Don't kill', niggas won't kill".

## Reception

* Scaruffi: 8/10
* ofstsld: 10/10
* W\_rosenberg: *"When i graduated from high school my parents offered to buy me a holiday abroad. I declined and asked for a copy of "Soundtracks for the Blind" instead. Somehow it all makes sense: Years of rough studies and training behind me, I was now ready to embrace the real thing. When I got the album I spent several days avoiding the enormousness of it all. At some point I did listen to it and still remember the feeling I got: The world would never be the same again, the naive childhood days of pre-soundtracks era were over.*

*When I hear the opening drones of "Red Velvet Corridor" fade in, I recognize that I'm entering the deep end of human psyche. Even the tiniest, most trivial elements seem to be filled with some alien quality. It's impossible to get a grip of it all but somehow feelings of both some foreign horror or unease and ecstatic bliss seem to co-exist peacefully. When the anonymous male voice in "I Was Prisoner in Your Skull", a truly disturbing sound collage,  informs you of how fucked-up you are in a somewhat humorous manner, the words still manage to sink in like the most heartbreaking and life-pulsating piece of prose ever written.*

*Track 3, "Helpless Child" is perhaps the early center piece of the whole album: 15 minutes of almost unbearable emotional intensity and possibly one of Gira's greatest achievements ever. At this point you've already been through death and resurrection. "The Beautiful Days" is sometimes even too much and it has pushed me towards an early exit when I've been too vulnerable to take it all in. "How They Suffer" is another collage work,  one borrowing the idea of Simon & Garfunkel's "Voices of Old People" and making it bear fruit. When the troubled male voice announces that he is now what they call legally blind I often get goosebumps all over me. How on earth can you make a climax out of a real life medical report?

"Animus" is another lengthy Gira masterpiece that closes the first half of the album. The second half carries sequels or responses to some of the early collage tracks and two major epics, "The Sound" and "The Final Sacrifice". "TFS" is the final surrender or indeed, sacrifice, thus ending Gira's career under the legendary Swans moniker.

All in all "Soundtracks" is the definitive peak of band's 15 year history and a fine summation of Gira's career. It marries the Swans' unforgiving no-wave past,  Branca esque guitar orchestration, Body Lovers style experimental ambient drone and Gira's new found talent as one of the greatest singer-songwriters of his generation.

To me the album has always been about cutting the umbilical cord and being a hungry, helpless child left on my own. Or like the "Prisoner in Your Skull" insists, of being fucked-up and having the dinner served but not knowing how to use the fork and recognizing that it's only your own inability separating you from the world. And the never ending nostalgy for those sunny, beautiful days of the childhood. This is certainly a somewhat subjective reading of the work but I'd suggest that Gira himself was going through a departure of sorts since, as often stated, the album was supposedly inspired by the death of his own father.

Some of my most memorable listening experiences include allowing it to play as a soundtrack to a Joseph Conrad novel "Heart of Darkness" or watching a moth circle nervously on a lone light bulb, both serving as fit metaphors for the record itself. But it's obviously as useless an attempt to try to verbalize the greatness, depth or the emotional value of the album as it would be to describe visual perception to a man born blind. But to say the very least, in my books no album has ever come close."*

* afterceasetoexist: *"If I were to write a review for Soundtracks for the Blind it'd probably be just as long if not longer"*
* Cieslick: "*6.453 / 10.*"
* Lorri: *"*
	1. *Red Velvet Corridor: P is born. He's a precious child, just as any baby, but something's a little off about him (eeeeee).*
	3. *I Was a Prisoner in Yr Skull: As P ages his memtal issues become more apparent (rum-raaab, yum-rum, rum-raaab.) He is heavily dependent on his parents even for little tasks. ("Everyone knows I am fucked up, and everyone knows you are fucked up...")*
	5. *Helpless Child: P has grown into a young adult and has learned to handle life a bit better, but his parents are still overprotective of him. He begins to resent his parents because they "won't let [him] breathe," meanwhile allowing him to become extremely dependent. Wanting to break away from this, he decides to leave home without their knowledge. He travels to New York City by train and enters a new stage of his life.*
	7. *Live through Me: As the train pulls into the station P gazes in awe at the city. Walking through the streets he finds an advertisement for a no wave concert that night.*
	9. *Yum-yab Killers: That evening P walks into a crowded warehouse. He is facinated by the energy of the band's frontwoman, shouting violent lyrics over the band's noisy accompaniment. As he becomes less and less sober, he starts to sing along to her chant, "Now blow your brains ou-u-ut!"*
	11. *The Beautiful Days: P's ears are ringing and it feels like the room is closing in on him. Despite the sheer volume of the band he can't hear a thing. He's on the verge of a panic attack and he needs to get out. He goes outside, where he meets a woman about his age smoking a cigarette. After his panic episode, he leans against the wall next to her and introduces himself. She is unfazed by the way she first encountered him and she introduces herself as J. As they start talking P starts to become enamored by her. She is a lonely sex worker, who wonders how the job has been affecting her mental health.*
	13. *Volcano: Back inside the band is still performing, but the frontwoman is becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Members of her male-dominated audience sexualize her in any way they can, including the creeps ("I'd like to suck her breast and blow hard") and the slut-shamers. She tries her best to ignore it, but ultimately her mental health is suffering as much as P's new friend's.*
	15. *Mellothumb: During an instrumental piece the frontwoman goes backstage. P and his new friend's conversation is cut short as they hear a shot and screams come from inside. The frontwoman has shot herself dead. P runs inside.*
	17. *All Lined Up: P watches the screaming crowd run in their panic. He begins to imagine the crowd being tortured by his hand. He loves the idea of being in total power. P pulls his knife and stabs audience members, slits their throats and cuts their wrists. As people start to run he grabs the gun from backstage and shoots the remaining audience members, his friend and himself.*
	19. *Surrogate 2: P wakes up in a hospital. He was actually knocked unconscious when he was trampled by the crowd as he ran inside during the panic. He's broken several bones and is now as physically dependent as he is mentally.*
	21. *How They Suffer: With little else to do besides watch the hospital television P thinks back of all the suffering he has experienced in his twenty or so years. He thinks of his father's early blindness, his mother's deteriorating health, J's emptiness in her life, what led to the frontwoman's suicide. All life involves suffering, he thinks as he lays on the hospital bed with multiple broken bones.*
	23. *Animus: P starts to reflect on his experiencing from the past night. He saw something in J. He wants to depend on her like he once depended on his parents. He starts to mentally break down as he realizes he might never find her again. Maybe she's forgotten him.*
	25. *Red Velvet Wound: J has most certainly not forgotten P. Rather, she saw something in him too. He was one of the few friends she had and she hopes she'll see him again.*
	27. *The Sound: P, now past his breakdown, examines himself. He knows he's fucked up. He remembers what he dreamed about doing in that warehouse, but he thinks there's still something left in him. He starts to separate his old self and his new life. "You despise, but I love," he vows. He begins to forgive his parents for their overprotectiveness and admits that he had been wrong. Nonetheless, he still can't shake his dependency, despite conscious efforts to change.*
	29. *Her Mouth Is Filled with Honey: At her home, J is high as a motherfucker on LSD. Her music's a bit strange, but she appears to be relaxing.*
	31. *Blood Section: Acid sequence. She's having a great trip.*
	33. *Hypogirl: J starts thinking about P. She wants to be with him, forever; she "love[s him] more than [her] life." Guess she is mooning about that boyfriend after all.*
	35. *Minus Something: Later in the night J is starting to seriously reconsider her life choices. She knows this job has been draining her and she has to be the bigger woman and find another path, but she doesn't know what options she has left.*
	37. *Empathy: P starts to beat himself up for his flaws. He tells himself he was "wrong to resist" the fucked-up side of himself. His mind is in conflict.*
	39. *I Love You This Much: J's trip is starting to go bad as she begins to focus on P again. She last saw him get trampled. Is the person she wants more than her own life even alive? Her thoughts cloud up and she breaks down.*
	41. *Yrp: J, in an enraged mental state, decides that regardless of what paths she may have left she cannot stay with her job. It has had too drastic of an effect on her sanity for her to keep it any longer. She has begun to see herself as "property" to her company.*
	43. *Fan's Lament: P's mind continues to be in conflict between the positive and negative.*
	45. *Secret Friends: J wakes up mid-afternoon after passing out at five a.m. She calls her boss to give her resignation, but soon after she realizes she still feels the need to be "property", and she'll likely never see P again.*
	47. *The Final Sacrifice: P is at a low point. His mind has been in conflict for who knows how long now, and he knows he is unable to fix it himself. In a final effort he turns to religion, but God is no help for P. He waits until night to, in horrible pain, find a discarded scalpel in the trash. Meanwhile J examines her life and realizes she has let herself turn into "property" and stripped away any meaning left for her life.*
	49. *Yrp 2: Failing to find any reason left to live without someone to submit to, J kills herself.*
	51. *Surrogate Drone: Wishing to put an end to his pain, both physical and mental, P stabs himself with the scalpel and dies."*

## Track listing

### Disc One (Silver)

1. Overprotected
2. Can't Get You Out of My Head
3. Escape
4. I've Got You
5. Girlfriend
6. I'm Gonna Be Alright
7. Move It Like This
8. Don't Say Goodbye
9. More Than a Woman
10. Uh Huh
11. Always on Time
12. Sugarhigh

### Disc Two (Gold)

1. Halfcrazy
2. Underneath Your Clothes
3. A Thousand Miles
4. A New Day Has Come
5. We Are All Made of Stars
6. First Date
7. Stillness of Heart
8. How You Remind Me
9. Get the Party Started/Sweet Dreams
10. I'm a Slave 4 U
11. Family Affair
12. Whenever, Wherever
13. Ain't It Funny
14. Livin' It Up

## Personnel

* Michael Gira
* Jarboe
* Jarboe's Dad
* Jarboe's Mom