Swans have made a limited-edition double CD entitled The Gate available to buy.
It contains demos, work-in-progress material and is packaged in handmade cardboard sleeves created by artist Nicole Boitos. Each of the 2500 copies feature a unique design and are individually numbered.
Money raised from sales will go towards recording the follow-up to last year’s To Be Kind.
Mainman Michael Gira said earlier this year their next album and tour would be the last with the current lineup featuring bassist Christopher Pravdica, drummer and percussionists Thor Harris and Phil Puleo, and guitarists Christoph Hahn and Norman Westberg.
He says: “I intend to keep the name and ongoing project of Swans active in a different form, drawing sporadically on the myriad list of musical cohorts I’ve met along the way over the last 30 plus years.
“But the creature, the beast, the monster, the liberating vortex of light and sound that is the six of us working in close quarters together over extended periods of time, will cease to exist.”
Gira indicates live performances will be “more sporadic” in the foreseeable future, and adds: “Maybe I’ll just give up music and try to write fiction. In any event, we’ll see.”
A range of packages are available for The Gate, including one with a DVD featuring a documentary of their recent tours.
The Gate tracklist
CD1
- Frankie M
- A Little God In My Hands
- Apos/Cloud Of Unforming
CD2
- Just A Little Boy
- Cloud Of Forgetting
- Bring The Sun Back/Black-Eyed Man
- When Will I Return (Demo)
- New Rhythm Thing (Demo)
- People Like Us (Demo)
- Red Rhythm Thing (Demo)
- Finally, Peace (Demo)
