Swans

Swans only sound like Swans. Their sound has changed dramatically from their early era in the 80s to their later in the 90s. From being a brutal and visceral combo with intense and obscure performances to achieving more atmospheric textures and even heavenly melodies. They can be tagged noise, industrial, ambient, folk, experimental, post-punk, no wave, metal and even post rock. My beloved Swans, I will always have a shelter under their music, either if i am feeling hopeless or hopeful.

Favorite Albums:
Filth
Greed
Children of God

The Great Annihilator
The Burning World

Favorite Songs:
Big Strong Boss
Swans – Saved
Swans – I Am the Sun
Beautiful Child
Swans – Money Is Flesh

Filth (1983)
Another exciting piece of history from one of The Big Apple's meanest, creepiest and uncompromising bands ever. Swans could only have come from New York, no other city other than Berlin could have produced such a glorious cacophony of unrelenting brutality. For me Swans rests somewhere between real industrial (not 90s industrial metal) and noise-rock. Their only peers would have been Glenn Branca, The Butthole Surfers, early Sonic Youth (who were more song based) and Einsturzende Neubauten. On 'Filth' they use repetition to exhilarating effect slowing everything down to a virtual crawl. It's difficult to describe this album but know one thing: nothing produced before or after it can match it in the brutality stakes. Like a wrecking ball it demolishes your weak mind while never overstaying it's welcome. 'Filth' is as the title would suggest an ugly beast of an album that will beat you and leave you paralysed on floor simply because it can.


Warning: This is really intense!

Swans - Beautiful Child (Live 1987)




And this one is from their 'melodious' period. A documentary covering 1995-1997

14 Iced Bears

They could sound poppy, scratchy, dreamy and psychedelic. Any way I love them.
I was first introduced to a song called 'Like A Dolphin' 4 years ago, and even though, this guys existed from 1985-1992, they always sounded fresh to me.

During my indie pop 'period' I could spend entire afternoons listening to tracks like 'Inside' and others (which unfortunately don't have any video).

Favorite Albums:
In the Beginning (Compilation)
Wonder
14 Iced Bears


Favorite Songs:
14 Iced Bears – Inside
Unhappy Days
Cut
Miles Away
14 Iced Bears – Sure to See

In The Beginning - Compilation (2001)

14 Iced Bears' songs alternate between straightforward, catchy pop and more obtuse post-punk-ish art songs. That duality is immediately apparent on In the Beginning, with the first two songs on the band’s first single—the musically gleeful pop of “Inside” and the more complicated rock arrangements on “Blue Suit.” 14 Iced Bears’ lyrical side is persistently multi-faced as well, shifting between enigmatic poetry and straight-from-the-heart raw expressions of love, jealousy, confusion and longing.

The more heart wrenching side of 14 Iced Bears is best capsulated on “Balloon Song,” their second single and a song that no doubt helped give them a following. It appears twice here, in studio and Peel session versions, and it could easily have been here a few more times without me minding. It’s both a truly perfect pop song, with a super glue hook and gorgeous singing, and a heartbreaking portrait of sad love. The chorus is worded just right, with word building upon word until it hits the right bittersweet note: “Don’t call me ever again / I think I’ve lost my only friend/a friend that happened to say that she loved me.”

14 Iced Bears - Mother Sleep (1989)

Sonic Youth

One of my all-time favorite artists.
No band could ever sound like them.


My Top Albums are:

Bad Moon Rising
EVOL
Daydream Nation
Sister


Bad Moon Rising (1985)
Is an album of inspired contradictions. Chilling yet pastoral, artful yet politicized, it documents a band at odds with its own impulses and the culture that spawned them. You can hear Sonic Youth struggling to define their identity in a medium that turned its back on such pursuits long ago. The album closer, "Death Valley '69" (with vocal contributions from Lydia Lunch) is the group's most rewarding dalliance into straightforward rock to date and a promising sign of things to come. But the song is epilogue to a conflict between posture and innovation. Over the next three years--climaxing with 1988's Daydream Nation--Sonic Youth would pursue the latter of these impulses with peerless results. But Bad Moon Rising is arguably their first essential release. It marks a crucial turning point in the band's history--the moment when an experiment became an institution. --Matt Hanks



Favorite Songs:
Sonic Youth – Expressway to Your Skull
Sonic Youth – Death Valley '69 (w. Lydia Lunch)
Sonic Youth – I Love Her All the Time
Sonic Youth – Brave Men Run (in My Family)
Sonic Youth – Green Light



Sonic Youth - I Love Her All The Time 01/05/85 Live at Gila Monster Jamboree