No, Thank You Mr Gira...



The Angels of Light - New Mother

OK, some background first: Michael Gira was the driving force of a band called The Swans who influenced alot of bands that I like today. I've heard Sonic Youth namecheck them, and Justin Broadrick from Godflesh has also mentioned them extensively during interviews. As far as I can understand The Swans could be incredibly loud, noisy and bleak - frankly I'm a little bit scared about exploring there back catalogue because of this (and the fact it's so big!), but one day I intend to be brave and venture forth. Before I do that I'm investigating Michael Gira's post Swans output, starting off with his song oriented work in The Angels of Light, this is there first album. It's a deeply personal collection of songs based around some deceptively simple melodies mainly based on Michael Gira's voice and acoustic guitar, but complemented with layers of accordian, violin, piano, banjo - just about everything except for the kitchen sink. Lyrically it can be a bit bleak, there is a lot of guilt and shame on show here: the last verse of Song For My Father is particularly tragic. Still these are things that shouldn't be hidden, it's not all bleak though - the first proper song is a fairly joyous tribute to violent women.



The Angels of Light - How I Loved You

The second Angels of Light album feels more orchestral, and has a slightly lighter feel, lyrically speaking, to the first album - although there is a song called My Suicide which kind of destroys my whole argument there. There are some stunning songs on offer here, highlights include My True Body with it's almost ritualistic tribal feel, Song For Nico keeps creeping up on me in a friendly Stalker sort of way, and New York Girls is just stunning IMHO anyway. If you are nervous about which Angels of Light album to start out with, I'd suggest go for this one.



Michael Gira - I am singing to you from my room

Skipping over the last Angels of Light album (Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home), here we have a Michael Gira solo album which does exactly what it says on the sleeve! It's recordings of him, in his office, with his guitar singing some songs. Before you even slip the CD into the player you have to admire the personal touch, each CD envelope has been screen printed by hand, numbered and has a personal thank you note (he actually signed the other CD's too - of which I'm well chuffed about!) - a lot of love has gone into this release! It contains songs that have appeared, or which may appear on Angels of Light CD - in the rawest most humble form, there's a fragment of a live song which he jokingly refers to as being utter self indulgence (I've heard worse), and suprisingly three children's songs. A wonderfully personal CD.