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Swans add 2 NYC shows w/ Devendra Banhart to tour (updated dates)

by Andrew Sacher

Swans at MHOW in 2011 (more by Dana (distortion) Yavin)
Swans

As mentioned, Swans, who released one of the best albums of the year with The Seer last week (8/28), will be kicking off an international tour in support of the album in Vancouver this week. That tour hits NYC for the previously discussed show at Bowery Ballroom on October 10 with A Hawk and a Hacksaw. Tickets for that show are still on sale but the weight of the album must finally have them heading towards selling out because Swans just added two more NYC shows. The new shows happen on October 28 at Bowery Ballroom and October 29 at Music Hall of Williamsburg and both will be supported by Devendra Banhart. Nice! Tickets for both of those shows go on sale Friday (9/7) at noon with an AmEx presale beginning Wednesday (9/5) at noon.

If you’ve yet to check out The Seer, give it a listen on Spotify or pick it up at the Young God webstore. Swans have 11 other full length albums under their belt since 1983 and when main man Michael Gira called The Seer “the culmination of every previous Swans album,” he really meant it and it stands true. If pressed to compare, it’s most similar in sound to 1996’s post-rocky Soundtracks for the Blind, but really it is like no other Swans album to date. The Seer is just under two hours long, its title track is over a half hour long, and two others are roughly 20 minutes, but not a second of your time is wasted. It’s the type of album that consumes you for the entire listen, and no justice is done to it by skipping songs.

It’s as soaring and ominous as a Godspeed record, as dissonant as Sonic Youth (or more accurately, Glenn Branca, who mentored members of both groups), and as heavy as Neurosis, who have collaborated with Swans’ Jarboe, who is back on board for this record. And one of the things that makes this record differ from the other greats of 2012 is that it is distinctly not 2012. It completely defies its time and anyone else’s, and is destined to be mentioned in years to come as a classic next to the magnum opuses of Swans’ sonic contemporaries.

A list of updated dates and a stream of a clip of “The Apostate” are below.

Swans – “The Apostate” (edit)

Swans — 2012 Tour Dates
9/6/2012 Vancouver BC Venue#
9/7/2012 Seattle WA Neumo’s Crystal Ball Reading Room#
9/8/2012 Portland OR Hawthorne Theater#
9/9/2012 9/10/2012 San Francisco CA The Regency Grand Ballroom#
9/11/2012 Los Angeles CA The Music Box#
9/12/2012 Phoenix AZ Crescent Ballroom#
9/14/2012 Austin TX La Zona Rosa#
9/15/2012 Houston TX Fitzgerald’s Upstairs#
9/16/2012 Dallas TX Trees#
9/18/2012 Oklahoma City OK ACM Performance Lab#
9/19/2012 Kansas City MO Beaumont Club#
9/20/2012 Lincoln NE Bourbon Theatre#
9/21/2012 Minneapolis MN Fineline Music Cafe#
9/22/2012 Milwaukee WI Shank Hall#
9/24/2012 Denver CO Gothic Theater#
10/10/2012 New York NY Bowery Ballroom^
10/11/2012 Boston MA Paradise Rock Club^
10/12/2012 Washington DC Black Cat Mainstage^
10/13/2012 Philadelphia PA Union Transfer^
10/14/2012 Raleigh NC Lincoln Theatre^
10/16/2012 Orlando FL The Social^
10/17/2012 West Palm Beach FL Respectable Street^
10/18/2012 Tallahassee FL Club Downunder^
10/19/2012 Atlanta GA Terminal West^
10/23/2012 St Louis MO Firebird^
10/24/2012 Chicago IL Cabaret Metro^
10/25/2012 Toronto ON Lee’s Palace^
10/26/2012 Montreal QC La Tulipe^
10/28/2012 New York. NY Bowery Ballroom%
10/29/2012 Brooklyn, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg%
11/01/2012 Reykjavik, Iceland Iceland Airways Festival*
11/15/2012 London, UK Koko*
11/16/2012 Glasgow, UK The Arches*
11/17/2012 Manchester, UK Sound Control*
11/19/2012 Paris,France Le Trabendo*
11/20/2012 Nijmegen, NL Doornroosje*
11/21/2012 Haarlem, NL Patronaat*
11/22/2012 Hamburg, Germany Kampnagel*
11/23/2012 Copenhagen, DK Det Kgl. Danske Konservatories Koncertsal*
11/24/2012 Oslo,norway Parkteatret*
11/27/2012 Prague, Czech Lucenra Music Bar*
11/28/2012 Vienna, austria Arena Big Hall*
11/30/2012 Bologna ,Italy Locomotiv*
12/2/2012 Kortrijk, Belgium De Kreun- Sunns curator festival*
12/3/2012 Bern, C, Reitschule Gross Halle*
12/4/2012 Lausanne,CH Les Docks*
* w/ Sir Richard Bishop
^ w/A Hawk & A Hacksaw
# w/Xiu Xiu
% w/ Devendra Banhart