Once Michael Gira stormed the world with his apocalyptic-industrial music group Swans. Nowadays his musical idiom is a little lighter, both in his new group The Angels of Light as in his solo work. But Michael Gira still manages to convey a lot of intensity.
Gira likes to be in control. Productions are released on his own label Young God Records. His website is his primary means of communication. Here you can obtain various web-only releases, often live recordings or raw material, which help to finance more ambitious projects.
‘I Am Singing to You from My Room’ is a lo-fi release. Gira placed a DAT-recorder with a microphone on his desk and sang 17 songs and played acoustic guitar. Many songs are raw sketches of tracks which will probably be included on Angels of Light albums in the future.
The first edition of 1000 copies of this cd is only available through his website. The album is a fine example of DIY: Gira folds, cuts and pastes all unique covers by hand and gives them a personal message and signature.
The melancholic or sometimes dark songs are filled with symbols, images and stories. A lot of demons are being fought as usual. Nevertheless there is also space for hope and light. It’s raw and bare, very personal music, brought back to the essence. With very simple means this music knows to affect me. On this album Gira again demomstrates to be a intense singer-songwriter.
Some details:
the song ‘Michael’s white hands’ is inspired by Michael Jackson and ‘Destroyer’ by the war in Iraq. ‘Rose of Los Angeles’ can be found in a different version on the latest Angels of Light album “Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home”.
‘Blind’ is my personal favourite. It dates from the Swans-period en was also included on Gira’s older solo-album “Drainland”. ‘All souls rising’ is a live fragment which goes for over 20 minutes…
The album end with three children’s songs, dedicated to the daughters of a befriended couple. For some reason these songs remind me a lot of Lou Reed.
