Track Listing

1. Fragment
2. Praise Your Name
3. New Mother
4. Angels Of Light
5. Inner Female
6. This Is Mine
7. Shame
8. Intermission
9. Man With The Silver Tongue
10. Real Person
11. Forever Yours
12. How We End
13. Garden Hides The Jewel
14. Not Alone
15. Song For My Father
16. His Entropic Highness
17. Fear Of Death

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #95927 in Music
• Released on: 2003-07-07
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .16 pounds

Customer Reviews

Stirring beauty
Michael Gira has explored multiple musical styles, from the obliquely brutal metallic mayhem of early Swans to the later tuneful folk, torch songs & atmospheric sounds in the side project World of Skin, and dark rock, drones & ambient excursions to complex orchestral compositions in the later Swans and The Body Lovers.

His post-Swans project Angels of Light reflects the same talent contained in the earlier work but is more accessible and digestible as the extremes associated with Swans are less prominent. With its beautiful melodies, arresting imagery and elegant orchestration, New Mother at times mirrors the brilliance of Swans' 1989 album The Burning World or the earlier work Children of God.

There are simple solo passages but overall the music consists of multi-layered textures & complex arrangements with an acoustic sound although electric instruments are used. The impressive arsenal includes acoustic, bass, classical, electrical & steel guitars, accordion, banjo, dobro, dulcimer, glockenspiel, melodica, mandolin, organ, mellotron, piano, organ, synthesizer, flute, xylophone, vibraphone, tabla, timpani, violin and more.

The album also contains dissonant, experimental tracks like Real Person, Not Alone and Fear of Death, but overall the sound is flowing and melodious. New Mother remains my number one Angels of Light album but I also recommend How I Loved You, Everything is Good Here/Please come Home and We Are Him (2008).

My favorites amongst the sonic splendor of these 17 tracks include: (4) Angels of Light with its swirling melodic buildup and poetic lyrics (6) This Is Mine, with its gracefully conveyed images of alcohol-induced despair plus religious imagery as on the aforementioned Children of God album (11) Forever Yours, probably autobiographical, with its compelling simplicity, engaging melody and personal but universal message (an echo of "Saved" from The Burning World: "You're an angel/I'll never betray you/But I'll always be/A lonely child").

The two the most exceptional songs are (13) The Garden Hides the Jewel, a gently undulating piece with unusual nature imagery and enigmatic, esoteric lyrics, and (14) Song for My Father, one of the most unbearably melancholy & moving songs I have ever heard. With lines like: "In here I sleep/Stoned guardian of my empty dream/Thank god you never saw the things that I have done/Thank God you never knew the person I've become."

Angels of Light fans who wish to investigate the gentler music of Swans from 1986 and 1987 I recommend the 2-disc compilation Children of God/World of Skin. Most of the first two World of Skin albums are there plus Swans' 1987 Children of God, the work on which the band's transition from brutal industrial noise to a softer & seductive but deeply subversive style found true expression. Those who like the music of artists like Nick Cave, Peter Murphy, John Cale, Nick Drake, Mark Eitzel, American Music Club and Leonard Cohen etc will love Angels of Light. New Mother is the proper place to start investigating their magic.

New Vision Burns Bright
`New Mother' shows Michael Gira pursuing a very different musical vision with Angels of Light than he did with Swans. This record is a sumptuous blend of folk/world instruments, infused with Eastern exoticism and mysticism, and although Gira's lyrical pre-occupation with religion, sex, masochism and self-loathing remains there are also fine spiritual moments here.

One of the most striking things about `New Mother' is the confidence with which Gira marshals his talented and diverse band of musicians to bring his songs to life. `Praise Your Name' and particularly the title track are outstanding pieces of music, built up gradually with lengthy introductions to shimmering washes of melodic instrumentation and percussion. The songs are allowed time to develop fully and do so beautifully. There are many different instruments used here but Gira's faultless production and arrangement allows them all to shine individually.

These tracks and also `The Man With the Silver Tongue' are truly beautiful, lush and anthemic, but there is satisfying variety on the record with sparer, more nightmarish songs like `Real Person'.

For me, the truly outstanding track is "The Garden Hides the Jewel', the most overtly Eastern-sounding song whose heady mix of music and melody combine with a deeply spiritual, almost whispered lyric to create a wonderfully atmospheric and moving piece. Pure speculation of course, but it does make you wonder if this was the sort of sound Gira was aiming to achieve on Swans' `The Burning World'.

`New Mother' is not entirely perfect though. At seventeen tracks over 70 minutes the record feels too long and does run out of steam towards the end. We could easily live without `How We End' and `Fear of Death', solo acoustic pieces which come across as not fully developed and I find the highly personal `Song For My Father' a little painful. With better editing this could have been an absolute classic but it remains a very good record indeed.

RADIANT BEAUTY
With its beautiful melodies, poetic lyrics and lush orchestration, New Mother at times mirrors the brilliance of Swans' 1989 album The Burning World or the earlier album Children of God. My special favourites amongst the sonic splendour of these 17 tracks include: (4) Angels of Light, with its swirling melodic buildup, (6) This Is Mine, with its gracefully conveyed images of alcohol-induced despair and self-loathing, (11) Forever Yours, probably autobiographical, with its compelling simplicity, engaging melody and personal but universal message [an echo of "Saved" from The Burning World: "You're an angel/I'll never betray you/But I'll always be/A lonely child"](13) The Garden Hides The Jewel, a most cinematic piece with unusual nature imagery, enigmatic & esoteric lyrics against a gently lilting melody, and (14) Song For My Father -- this is the most unbearably sad song I have ever heard. With lines like "In here I sleep/Stoned guardian of my empty dream/Thank god you never saw the things that I have done/Thank god you never knew the person I've become." In the broadly defined space occupied by Nick Cave, Peter Murphy, Leonard Cohen, Mark Eitzel et al., very few songs can match this harrowing tale of guilt and regret. New Mother is a magnificent album and should appeal to all listeners of serious music.