Composer Reacts to SWANS - The Seer (REACTION & ANALYSIS)
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- Опубликовано: 28 июл 2024
- Bryan reacts to and talks about his thoughts on The Seer
ORIGINAL VIDEO // • The Seer
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0:00 Intro
00:59 Reaction
33:28 Analysis - Glad I've Heard It Once
36:01 Analysis - Not Deep, But Dense
38:22 Analysis - Patience of Performance
46:12 Analysis - What It's Doing
53:15 Analysis - Lyrical Dive
56:52 Outro
#reaction #swans #experimentalrock
lol your attitude at the beginning is like English teacher preparing to read essay of a student that never follows assignments, writes way too much, off topic and delusional
Yep, that's Swans. Not sure though about the 'delusional' part. Mr. Gira knows exactly what he's doing
@@user-xq1bc5qx2phe knows what he’s doing because he’s delusional lol
@@nintendorocks1 l'll pretend I understood what you meant
@@user-xq1bc5qx2p Michael Gira knows what he’s doing, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t delusional.
@@nintendorocks1 Ah, yes. All of us are delusional. I forgot
For me personally, Swans music just represents the feeling of facing the divine. My fav track from them, The Glowing Man, feels very religious. The really loud and heavy sound to me feel like they're used to make you feel minuscule, like you're facing something bigger than life, but it wouldn't work without the repetitions, because then the feeling wouldn't stick, and you wouldn't feel the inevitability or the "horror" of facing something that we can't really fathom or control.
Just a comment about the band getting tired of playing things. Another unique aspect of Swans is that they rarely return to older material in their live shows. They generally play the new album and maybe throw in one older song, so the band only has to play the songs for one tour. This can be a plus or a minus, but i can definitely respect it.
That certainly helps. I've actually thought about this a lot lately, how artists will pour their hearts into music and make these exact snapshots of how they were feeling at a specific point in their life and then how they're kinda forced to revisit those low points of their life for years during concerts. It sounds torturous, in a way.
Pretty sure that I've said on other Swans tracks how I dig their later work (which would include this), but I totally get why they're an acquired taste, and probably one people who don't dig atmospheric "slow-jams" won't acquire. Still, I find their soundscapes and moods utterly original and oddly addicting. Like you, I tend to tune out with a lot of music that's static and sits in the same ideas for interminable periods, but Swans always keep my interest sonically and tonally. This album is arguably their masterpiece--at the very least it's one of them--and it definitely has even more punch when listened to its entirety rather than just a single track in isolation. Definitely one of those "turn off your analytical mind and get lost in the feels of the soundscape" kind of things, though.
I totally agree with them being unique. Even among the post-rock, long burn bands they have a sound unlike others. My closest analogy is something like Boris or Fishmens but this is a lot more oppressive than either of them even when they're being oppressive like in Boris' The Flood.
Very glad you checked this one out! I totally understand not enjoying every second of this track (and this album, which for context, is the first album of a trilogy of 2 hour long monsters, each with a different vibe, released between 2012 and 2016). As you said, this music requires patience, both to perform and to listen to.
For me the best way to experiece this music is as a canvas for my imagination. When I listen to music like this, some scene always plays in my head. This music creates images in my mind, and with this track, and this album in general, I imagine a group of men, wearing brown robes, trying to hunt down a beast/thing that has been terrorizing a village in medieval times, killing livestock and wreaking havoc. There is something extremely physical and visceral about the way this music makes me feel. You have already listened to a bit of Swans' early 1980s material, which, as I read it, also aims to be felt "physically", albeit in a much harsher and more punishing way. This music tells me a story, but in a way, I tell it to myself.
Tying into the themes of the "seer", as you hinted to, I think it could also be read from the perspective of a man gone insane after experiencing apocalyptic visions. Swans' music often shows us what it feels like to be out of one's control, whether of one's emotions, body or mind. Although their sound has changed significantly throughout the years, it always holds this energy, this feeling of losing your grip on reality and seeing it burst into pieces. I find it extremely powerful, sometimes terrifying, and always intriguing.
beautifully put! love the imagery you use
The music might function well as a soundtrack to a film, but it doesn’t work well on its own. Gira has a semblance of an idea which he then proceeds to beat to death.
all music tells a story that we essentially tell to ourselves. Always great to read a thoughtful comment.
The first fourteen minutes are all tension and release. The middle slower section is just primal fear (I heard someone describe it as “the happening”). The last couple sections are the aftermath and the return. That’s how I see it anyway.
It’s a sound painting that can induce the listener to imagine stories, but there’s no specific meaning per se. Edit: Love your Seer’s nightmare interpretation!
I’d also like to note that their tempo changes are *incremental* in the truest sense of the word. It takes massive patience, but if you can immerse fully into the buildup (understandable if you can’t), then it doesn’t seem so monotonous anymore. You notice a forward momentum but can’t tell exactly where it’s coming from.
On the note of how the band crossed paths, Gira (frontman) essentially handpicks members as far as I can tell. People leave when they’re done with the band and new members come in. Also, on the note of being very comfortable playing live over and over again with these songs: they are a very experimental live band. The songs develop and change on the fly. Michael Gira is the composer as he has the final say and starts out with main musical ideas, but it’s a collaborative process. It’s somewhat improvisational but they pick up from previous ideas so as to not be unorganized or unrecognizable.
And obviously you know this, this kind of music doesn’t really “stand up” to conventional compositional wisdom and analysis. It’s very experiential and even excessive, as you said.
I wish you also do a reaction on The Glowing Man title track, it has one of the best non-metal choruses / breakdown / drop I've heard. very heavy, heavier than most of metal
I think that a full reaction to the To Be Kind album would be amazing! Definitely a lot to take in and digest, but also one of the most interesting and unique records I have ever heard
Be prepared for a five (maybe six) hour video on it =D
This is trance inducing music you listen to with eyes closed
And you feel a bit tense and scared occassionally
Interesting how time and atmosphere are so closely linked. There's so many ways to interrogate that relationship. This song gives me the feeling of the state of being lost in ones consciousness, what can be the discordant and sometimes downright frightening hall of mirrors when you've lost control of your sober state of mind. While I think it would be very interesting to listen to this in an altered state of mind, there is a menacing sense here of a trap that would keep me away.
this song morphed from a little intro to an older song called I Crawled during lives tours back in 2010, and slowly, it became this huge half hour track.
I think with Swans alot of their music is more re-listenable in the context of the album. It always feels a little off to me without the additional context, so while I can never listen to the individual tracks I do listen to the albums again occasionally.
The one piece of music I can't ever listen to again is Everywhere At The End Of Time. Mostly because I don't have 6 and a half hours to just sit and listen to a piece of music. But the one time I did listen to it in its entirety, man that was an unforgettable experience.
9:09 Yes, Swans does that(the breathing thing). I consider it to be a good thing. The music moves so steadily that everything that is unsteady sticks out like a sore thumb.
I’ve heard before that especially with their longer more monotonous songs they’ve really tried to conjure a sort of religious experience out of the shamanic qualities.
Much respect for reacting to this one. You're the man. Do the song "The Apostate" and "A Piece of the Sky" too if you have the time. Both are on this album.
Absolutely one of my favorite songs ever from my favorite band, but I totally get not enjoying the entirety of this one lol. Im huge into textures and repetitive rhythms, but even I start loosing my grip on what’s happening during the second third of this song. I think the optimal way to hear this is to listen to the entire album from start to finish in one go, because the live concert of Swans I saw was an experience very much like that; it was almost five hours long with no breaks and I felt like a different species by the time I left. For me, they’re all about hitting huge emotional peaks from these really gradual, detailed journeys which often feel totally liminal because the details are changing so precisely over time that I often don’t notice the tempo has changed or that an instrument has been added or taken out. They do test my patience at times, but I think that testing of patience is a fundamental reason why I enjoy swans though; it feels like hitting a PR for my ability to concentrate and the suffering just makes the joy of release hit harder
See, I'd call this progressive, moreso than that of many prog bands out there. There is a distinct feel of the sound moving from point a to point b, even if slowly, a progression that's almost akin to seeing a monument being built in real time, from the foundations up.
And then they tear it down.
In retrospect, reacting to this might put what I said about Neurosis on monday within context. Swans influenced Neurosis sound a lot, to the pint that Michael Gira was considering hiring Neurosis as Swans's live band. Neurosis would later work with Jarboe ( Swans's long time female singer during the 80s and 90s) on a collab akin to what Cult of Luna would do with Julie Christmas. Jarboe is also an interesting figure that would go on to lend her voice as a guest in quite a few black metal projects.
Neurosis and Swans back to back. A dream come true!!
As everyone as said the easiest way to understand Swans is throught listening to the full album but still I love watching your indepth reactions and analysis to this weird kind of music that I love. Also the car thing sound you talked about, that is a lap steel with a bunch of pedals that Kristof Hahn plays in very interesting ways. I would recomend you check their live preformances and yes they are indeed normaly 2 h long or more.
I guess to me the interpretation of this song is in the story of the album when the main character this case the Seer becomes it and as you said see's it all into a nightmare state and at the end when he is just speeking gibberish hes as you said a total lost of the mind and how to speak from the overwhelmingness also the son rigth after "The Seer" is "The Seer Returns" showing him coming back down from that "ascencion" into the helscape he got himself in but yeah. Love your reactions!!
I got to see both bands nearly back to back (same year) though i listen to neurosis more via cd/vinyl/.mp3 swans performance blew neurosis out of the water... if youve only heard recordings you would think neurosis would be the louder of the 2 but swans may have been the loudest band I've ever seen... and I've seen SunnO)))
Note that "The Wolf" is a quick prelude into it and "The Seer Returns" is an extended outro. For the vinyl record issue, all the tracks I mentioned are on both sides of the third disc.
Crit, I always enjoy your Swans dissections! I know you’re open about it being tough to get through, but your full engagement is appreciated.
I want to echo some others: if you’re giving this music all your attention, you might as well close your eyes. Blocking out vision lets you sit with the music differently, especially from Soundtracks For The Blind onwards. I don’t see anything in my imagination, but it kind of lets my mind know what I’m committing my attention to until my ears go dark. That’s my tip for connecting emotionally with their abstract compositions! It quiets the monkey mind a little.
Secondly, and this I think is the harder sell, but their albums are composed as wholes. If you care to continue into their studio discography, especially the trilogy of The Seer, To Be Kind, and The Glowing Man, I think you could seriously appreciate what the music is doing. On that note, Swans have always been a band that lives off their live shows. If there’s no chance you’d dissect a 2 hour album, then I’d look at “Oxygen” live to see how strange the band’s performance dynamics really are. It’s also relatively short for a Swans song!
The fact you tackled Helpless Child, Cloud of Unknowing, and The Seer for your first three Swans tracks is incredible, if ambitious. All three of these songs are like movements in the (abstract) narratives of their respective albums. Just saying, if you drop a four hour analysis video… I’m there.
Heya! Not finished with the reaction yet, but I wanna say a few things because this got me thinkin:
- I think I enjoy swans, but I enjoy swans due to the atmosphere they provide. This song in tandem with the song that comes after it, The Seer Returns, place me firmly in a revelation-styled apocalypse, with Michael Gira sounding like a preacher screaming the end of times.
- Part of that enjoyment for me is a sort of adrenaline I get from music being overwhelming, and the best way I’ve found to do that is with albums by them on full blast as I’m either driving or just hanging out in my room. Of course both of these are secondary to the intended experience of the band live, which I’ve seen compared to Godspeed You! Black Emperor in terms of volume and intensity; if I recall correctly, in their youth their shows were so loud that audience members would actually vomit from the sound.
- that instrument you thought was a shamisen is a form of hammered Dulcimer!
- the band have been around since the mid 80s and had a revolving door of cast members who centered around Gira, the aforementioned vocalist.
- back to the repetition idea, back to the repetition idea, I remember them saying that the goal of the repetition is to make the sound become part of the environment, in a similar way to ambient artists. I guess that makes them power ambient? Not sure 😂
That’s a whole lot of words, I hope it made sense! Thanks for the reaction, I know a 30+ minute track can be difficult for anyone to listen to, let alone one having this much repetition.
“power ambient,” I am rolling
I am that single guy in a bedroom trying to make long weird songs (nothing released yet). To be more specific I record outside of a storage unit with my friend
It's not meant to be looked in the same way as western music is usually looked. If you do that, it's only boring and monotonous.
That being said, this is one of my favorite pieces of music. It's like listening to nature in the forest. There are different sounds and that alone can be music to your ears. Now, this piece of course sounds very different to a forest, the soundscape is very intense, going slowly through different passages of sound that induce quite powerful emotions in me. Drowziness, bliss, fear, being overwhelmed, meditativeness... You're kind of supposed to lose yourself in the repetition by turning off the analytical mind and just surrendering to the wall of sound
As a composer myself, I don't take this as a composition of music in the same way as I tend to take rock, metal or classical music. It's more a hypnotic sonar experience.
I saw Swans on their tour for this very album, I bought the vinyl, got it signed by Michael Gira, but I will admit I've hardly listened to the vinyl as its such a big commitment to choose to listen to this album. It's so long and challenging and you cant listen to one song to truly get the joy out of this album.
It is such a commitment to listen to the vinyl, but it’s a great experience to listen to all 8 sides of Soundtracks for the Blind-you really feel like you’ve accomplished something after lol
I listened through the track and your analysis after. I find the album overwhelming. Filled with portent and foreboding. To me it feels like the soundtrack to a film exploring the Cthulhu Mythos.
I honestly, sincerely think this album is transcendently beautiful in many places, but I can see why other people wouldn't, and that's okay
Swans sounds to me like an Orthodox church music gone wrong. The emotions they convey aren't easy to grasp, I find it hard to decide if it's indifferent or passionate to the extreme. But to me it's like searching for spirituality only to find pure existential horror. It's as oppressive as life gets, not asking for either your permission or preferences. It just is, and while it's here - it's here, you can't ignore it. A good reminder you're actually living, in case you forgot behind all the fuss of the mundane.
That caption lol. Yeah, that about sums it up.
This band is sooo dark!! I love it.
iconic tagline for the vid thumbnail 😆
Yup, def a hammered dulcimer to my ears. The "wall of sound" in the beginning must have been bagpipes (except some cymbals and hammered dulcimer for percussion and atmospheric background).
I do think a guitarist emulated that "RC-car sound". Listen closely with a guitar in mind. Skilled guitarists can make all kinds of sounds from their instruments. Hendrix already made e.g. motor emulations.
I'm with you about not being keen on relistening. That said, I did enjoy this ride. Too litle action to make me wanna come back but a really exciting ride as a one off experience.
That sound is from the lapsteel player, basically strumming as fast as he can and sliding up to the highest parts of the strings.
I'm with you there. This was an interesting ride and I'm glad I heard it. but i don't think i'd ever want to re-listen
@@TheMadalucard So it was emulated with a string instrument 🙂
Swans is basically a solo project. Michael Gira is the main creative force. I don't get why people insist on sending you the most abrasive and long songs. They have plenty of shorter, groovy songs. But I guess people want to terrorize you a bit. I love this stuff though.
Oxygen, A Little God in My Hands, Lunacy, Screenshot, Cloud of Forgetting are all great intros to Swans.
@@nicknickson3650 include mind/body/light/sound, new mind and eden prison.
Back down to 2 months behind :)
Didn't expect to enjoy this either, but it's really menacing and pensive... I love the build, would go amazingly at DunaJam. Sounds like a mantra. Towards the harmonica section, when he void arrived behind the music (absence of bass), I felt this song would be more enjoyable if lay back and falling to sleep. Would also make a good soundtrack to a short film. Yep I listened right through, but I'm playing FM2020 whilst listening. Yep, Hammered Dulcimer. We're going to feature one of those briefly on our next album :)
Also, it's not patience really, it's just that Gira gets in a trance when doing this stuff and that's why they get so long, it's not composing, they developed the songs playing them
54:54 they do weigh the number of ratings. An album with more ratings can get a higher rank with a lower average.
Oh that's good to hear. Gives their rating a bit more meaning.
I still hope you do a full reaction to ephel duath - pain is necessary to know.
Swans make very spiritual music. This isn't meant as a literal religious Christian metaphor or anything, but I've always seen it as if some music is closer to a truer expression of God and some is a bit further away. If pop music makes you sit on God's shoulder, Swans are one of the ones that, if you successfully do away with your preconceptions about life (as much as that is possible), put you directly in the palm of the hand, close to the pulse
I think you would enjoy White Light from the Mouth of Infinity, I think it's one of their very best. Swans was never the same after Jarboe left
The funny thing about this song is that after two listens you can't imagine removing a second of it.
The power tool/RC car is a slide guitar.
Everyone always describes this song as apocalyptic and the end of the world and stuff but that always felt too broad and surface level of a description for me. For me it feels more like we are hearing the mind of the wolf (previous track) struggling, trying to reject the seer, ultimately failing and slowly dying. Whoever this seer is is just assaulting their mind over and over again relentlessly. That harmonica part feels like the final breaths of someone's life, sitting motionless in a desert just waiting for death to come before they are ultimately born again as something completely different and terrifying. It is no longer his body, spitting words like some feral animal. Obviously no one is right or wrong about their own impressions but this is my take and funnily enough most of this is based off lyrics from the wolf more than this song.
Their new album being released supposedly has a 43 minute long song... if you think this one is long
A few weeks ago I did a reaction to an 83 minute long song -- and that was an interesting experience. 😅
it's not a song, it's a sound collage that's the third iteration in their "Body Lovers" series. Part 1 is The Body lovers, which is 2 hours long, part 2 is Look at Me Go, which is 45 minutes long, Beggar Lover is part 3.
My favorite song of theirs is "Jim"
I super respect you actually admitting to not liking this one. I love Swans but seeing everyone loving it on first listen feels like unfair representation. Kudos for actually sitting through it and voicing you opinions
I've landed in hot water with fans in the past for vocalizing my dislike for popular songs but I stand by my opinions. And I usually try to understand the music regardless of if I enjoyed it. I'm glad to find that there are a growing number of people on RUclips looking for honesty in the review / reaction space.
Swans, for me, is not really within my musical taste, though I do like dipping my toes in once in a while. I just find it fascinating how visceral and raw it is, and how they forcefully play with your emotions. For full effect, play it as loud as you can tolerate without trying to analyze it.
I hardly call it 'songs'. Songs are more up to Irene Jarboe's gothic side of Swans. Try Nothing Without You, In My Garden or the 'story telling' of I Crawled (Jarboe's live version)
I enjoy some of Swans tracks but I have to agree the ideas here are just not interesting enough to warrant such repetitions, even though the texture work is pretty good. Bohren und der Club of Gore do some similar stuff (even more repetitive) but it works better in their case imo.
i gave swans a few tries but it just bounces of me
but i have to say now that you opened the flood gates of reacting to album length songs im anticipating edge of sanity - crimson at some point
This isn't even the longest song I've listened to. I think currently that goes to Frederick Thordendal's Sol Niger Within at 43-ish minutes. And I'm pretty sure I'll have to do some Bell Witch sometime in the life of this channel 😅
omg from all of their 2010s era songs why would you recommend the seer to a swans beginner? bad idea, the reaction he had was granted
To be fair, I don't think hearing more SWANS tracks would have changed my feelings towards this one. 😅
@@CriticalReactions As a years long fan, this track is still a bit much for me, Bring the Sun or The Glowing Man are immaculate however (especially The Glowing Man)
They are just torturing you at this point, lol
OP, you are approaching this from an entirely wrong angle. Stop being so modernist, you are looking for form, structure, and melody in a material that's not at all about that, Swans express and propagate emotions and "mind states" (for the lack of better term) that are raw and cathartic, but also nuanced and complex to a point they can't be expressed and conveyed with inferior, more limited means, like language or fine art. Moments of extreme heaviness, extreme repetition, and even calm melodic elements combine in brilliant and unexpected ways to infect you with those cathartic emotional states. Get baked, put the headphones on, kill your modernist prejudices and preconceptions, and just perceive, don't analyse. Maybe look into fellow traveler genres like dark ambient/drone, power electronics, japanoise, etc., modernist form is pretty much dead at this point, all the cool kids are going for vibe.
I love the swans but I sincerely can’t listen to them for long periods of time because they depress me so utterly I just feel like I’ve fallen into a deep abyss with a noose at the end and it’s not a feeling I a can easily deal with at times. I listen to a little bit more angels of light over the swans, but it’s all good. I love Michael giras writing so much. Depressing bastard.
Music can certainly be powerful but it's good that you've recognized what their music can do and take the appropriate steps to minimize it's control. There are a handful of songs that I personally avoid because I know they're gonna put me in a funk for the rest of the day despite my enjoyment of them.
This band is essentially 90% transitions and 10% songwriting. I personally really like the band, but the more I listen the more I think they’re overhyped - especially the trilogy.
Ah, Swans-every pretentious teenager's favorite band.🤣
I've seen them live like 5 times and the audience is mostly older people, lots of old goths and neofolk type men and women. They've been around since the 80s you know. Teenagers these days don't listen to Swans, they love Polyphia for some reason.
Greatest band on planet earth
I "learned" to love Swans, especially the three super long albums, but I still have a hard time sitting through this track. I struggle even more with A Piece of the Sky.
Often when I listen to Swans, I think about Hot Chip - ʺOver And Overʺ: "the joy of repetition really is in you".
53:11 you're awesome