It’s in the sweating, early years of pummeling, mechanical outbursts that grind through silence like the knife of a serial killer through flesh. This push and pull is one that has dominated the man’s work and art. In person, Gira is soft – not shy, but of an almost childlike charm, overtaken by gratitude and awe when complimented, the sun suddenly rising on his face. On stage, Gira can explode into sudden bursts of outrage, grab the hair of a headbanger, rip a mobile phone from the hands of a spectator, or berate technicians and punks, sending the sacred barrier between performer and audience careening to the grave, causing shockwaves of sound and emotion that finally melt into a transcendental state that overtakes the room. Tall, face impossible to read, a cowboy without horse, his eyes restless and that of a mad animal, somewhere between anger, anxiety and love. And standing right next to Michael Gira comes with a sense of witnessing some sort of quasi biblical figure, like Judge Holden. Swans have always been a towering, gargantuan group – in stature and in form. The giant’s breath returns to him, in a single cry of victory: alive! His brow furrowed, he traces the gash with his finger. His fingers graze his chest, finally finding the protruding metal piece embedded just short of his heart. Wavering atop the hill, the giant glares down upon the valley, breathing heavily, the toll of time gestating what is left of his mad mind, as he observes those below reducing their village to ashes. Like some drug of the Victorian era, it overtakes my senses, with my mind following closely behind. It’s my spiritual side, I’m sure.īut still, just so you know – I’m still poring over your latest text. I recently thought a lot of you, as I feel this fractured era of great destruction and anger could be one of your texts: a merciless and uncompromising vision of dread that slowly encapsulates the human race, only to lead to a strange moment of great forming, blinding light that transforms into love and a coming dawn. Part of me has this vision of our time as the labor of a new man, but I suspect the same is true of those that lived through the first and second great war, only to feel dumbfounded by Woodstock and Manson. I’m happy to hear that you’re doing well – or as good as possible in the rumbling of the 21 st century.
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