New Mother

Artist: The Angels of Light
Label: Young God Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 658457000823
EAN: 0658457000823
ASIN: B00000I8MI

Release Date: 1999-12-28

New Mother

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Tracks:

Fragment
Praise Your Name
New Mother
Angels Of Light
Inner Female
This Is Mine
Shame
Intermission
The Man With The Silver Tongue
Real Person
Forever Yours
How We End
The Garden Hides The Jewel
Not Alone
Song For My Father
His Entropic Highness
Fear Of Death

Similar Items:

Everything Is Good Here / Please Come Home
How I Loved You
The Angels of Light Sing Other People
Drainland
Great Annihilator

Customer Reviews:

DARKNESS VISIBLE.......2005-07-02

Michael Gira's ode to darkness is given new light, as it were, in the 1999 debut album of his most recent creation, Angels of Light, both a passive defiance of Christianity, as a few songs praise Jesus for the path to secular normality, and a remarkably quiet regard to his listeners who are the object of his dark humanist affection. Gira is at the center of a group of credited yet anonymous sounding musicians, who don't so much as form an ensemble, as they dillegently support the brooding quirkiness of Gira's haunting moods, save the supporting choral vocals who sound like someone Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits would hire to give a song some melodic charm. Behind Gira, such gleeful harmonies sound like a curse, a contradiction of sweet and sour. This is certainly nothing like industrial, metal, goth Swans, Gira's first band, no more anguished screams to the pagen god of the sky, nor anything like Drainland, a solo work which finds him knee deep in thunderstruck commoner insight, like a profound message from a drunk. In Angels of Light's "New Mother", Gira is content to strum his guitar and sing (practice) his voice in variations on religion and politics in the form of a distant lover, and the result is slow-going and singularly atmospheric, like Gira speaking to you from across a table with a megaphone. I could almost say it's a bit indulgent, except Gira has already proven his worth. Given the downtempo dour heartbeat of these songs, the angels of light casts all shadows.

Not what I listened to Swans for.......2005-06-16

I _really_ like Swans during a particular stretch of their discography (The Burning World, White Light from the Mouth of Infinity, Love of Life, The Great Annihilator). This Angels of Light is not at all similar to what I liked about Swans. I am sorry I bought it.

this is such a great album.......2005-05-31

i think this is the best album that Gira has done since Swans, and i suppose it really does live up to what he did in the past. with fifteen songs ranging from quiet to discordant (but never to the degree that some Swans stuff was) the record has variation. the best part of it however is the band in back of Gira, just read the credits list and you'll see how many people were involved with this project, there's accordion, glockenspiel, steel guitar, mandolin(!), dulcimer, banjo, mellotron, B3 organ, double bass, violin, and more in back of Gira. when you hear the way this record is produced you'll understand how well all of these instruments add to the record, it is rather subtle. the song writting is very good on this album, Gira really has reached the level of Dylan and Cohen in my opinion, and it is evident here in each song. my favorite songs are probably Inner Female, which boasts a real thick interesting atmosphere and Forever Yours. Get this is if you are a fan of Michael Gira or similar stuff.

One of the Few.......2004-11-14

Tenench has been following this artist for about 2 decades and considers Michael Gira to be one of the few recording artists who actually is an artist in every sense of the term. Angels of Light is the culmination of Michael Gira's long journey through the many twists and turns of what it takes to have artistic vision and keep it in tact for an entire recording career. While other artists struggle to craft one original sound they can call their own Gira has managed to do it 7 or 8 times ! If you look at his output from Circus Mort (only one recording) to the many facets of Swans , to Angels of Light , to the many Michael Gira solo projects it is hard to find anyone more productive and captivating. On top of this he manages to run his own recording label (Young God Records) in which he discovers other talent as formidable as his own - check out Devendra Banhart for proof. He is another story in which I had mixed opinion after seeing him perform last year , I think he was still finding his footing -only 21 years old I think. Devendra's recordings are stellar and already historically significant. Without Gira's keen sensibilities Banhart would most likely still be unknown, instead he now has wide critical acclaim after only about a year and a half long public career.

Back to this particular Angels of Light offering. It is one of the most captivating and original recordings ever published and defies category. Gira manages to take you completely out of your skin and draw you into another world with his lyrical mystique , vocal tone , and uncanny genius for instrumentational arrangement . The song subjects are sometimes clear and sometimes not but are very thought provoking and emotional throughout. It helps to have a little shared headspace with the writer (emotional experiences ,personal revelations , art history ) so some listeners are unable to find the courage to face this music . The best thing about Gira is that no matter what he is writing about , even depression, it comes off as being powerful, not whining like some writers.In fact I find that when I listen to some of his recordings that I can't listen to anything else for a while because it seems weak and trite in comparison to Gira's world. In short he challenges your human sensibilities and psyche which is something alien / unexpolored in songwriting to a large extent .

Without giving a song by song opinion I encourage anyone who values artistic integrity to check out all 3 cd's by Angels of Light ( New Mother , How I Loved You , & Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home ). Also Gira published a limited edition cd that he recorded in his office called "I Am Singing to You From My Room" that is outstanding. It is just him and his trusty Guild acoustic guitar with no overdubbing - amazing. It is only available on the Young God website and is signed by the artist. Mind boggling that an artist recording himself in his office dwarfs anything put out by the mainstream recording industry in the the past decade or more .

Awesome.......2003-01-29

Michael Gira outfitted with Swans had a particularly unique feel and sobering taste for the profound truth of societal and spiritual living in thier dark dirge-ish music.
Gira displays so much in this solo effort it seems to reveal the space Gira was meant to occupy. As many people that have loved Swans should have no question at all as to how diffrent and at times nearly better this album is then his Swans projects before it.
Lengthy and patient songs of self destruction and the brooding interface between reality and sobriety guild this album with dark undertones to geuflect the at times beautiful and elegant atmosphere that the Swans too were known to enwrap us with.

Music Album:

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