(Turns out this post was too big for one email, so I have split it into two.) Well, over the years there has been a sporadic discussion of M. Gira's music on this list. I thought I would post a review of the latest album by his band, The Angels of Light. Review: Group: The Angels of Light Title: Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home Label: Young God Records Catalog Number: YGR-22 Release Date: February 2002 Format: compact disc URL: http://www.younggodrecords.com "Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home" is the third studio release by The Angels of Light, Michael Gira's band since the dissolution of SWANS in 1997. The 11 tracks on the album are all making their first appearance from the studio, although many of the songs have appeared on three cdr's released in limited editions by Young God Records through their website. These three low-production releases contain very different versions of the songs and provide a good starting point for the discussion of "Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home". In 2001, Gira released "Solo Recordings at Home", a low-fidelity recording of guitar and voice only. The songs are necessarily sparse. Two songs that appear on "Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home", "Kosinky" and "What You Were", first appeared here. The simplicity of the arrangements and the absence of post-recording production allow the emotions of the songs to be transmitted to the listener with perfect clarity. This album reminded me of some of the historical recordings of American folk music on the Smithsonian/Folkways label, e.g. Dock Bogg's "The Folkway Years", in that they present without any attempt at commercial aggrandizement, one man performing on voice and strings (guitar for Gira, banjo for Boggs) and demonstrating that practice that they so love that they have devoted their lives to it. When "Kosinky" and "What You Were" appear on "Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home", they are totally different creatures. Gira is joined by The Angels of Light regulars, Cristoph Hahn, Larry Mullins, and Thor Harris, who have appeared on all three of The Angels of Light albums, and Dana Schechter, who appeared on the last two albums. Additionally, guest musicians appear through-out the album, providing piano, guitar, mandolin, trombone, trumpet, flutes, accordion, violin, banjo, voice, and, as Gira writes in the press release, "the dreaded children's choir" (used to relatively innocuous effect). This additional instrumentation is added to different ends. While the songs are denser, they have lost some of the simple beauty of the earlier, sparse arrangements. At times the additional instruments seem to clutter the songs, rather than add layers of depth to them. However, this is merely a matter of opinion and reflects the reviewer's preference for the simpler arrangements. Someone who hears these songs for the first time on "Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home" will not have the same bias. The mood and subject matter of the songs is all Gira, full of internal examination of thoughts and emotions, some of which are better left unexplored. The album is full of themes of regret and quiet dismay at the slow demise of various people around him. Always present is Gira's trademark mixture of love and anger, sensitivity and contempt, in dealing with these people. "Kosinsky", a song with a very beautiful sound, both in terms of the music of the instruments and the music of the voice, appears to be, now that lyrics are provided, about a pedophiliac, sexual predator. How unfortunate I read the lyrics; I would have preferred to remain blissfully ignorant. In 2002, Young God Records released what amounts to an "official bootleg", titled "We Were Alive", a recording of a show in Toronto from the 2001 Angels of Light Tour following the release of their second studio album, "How I Loved You". According to the liner notes, the sale of this release completely funded the recording of "Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home". Extending back into the Swans era, Gira has always liked to include songs from future albums on his current tours. This tour was no exception and this live release contains songs appearing on the new studio album. For the tour, the band consisted of Gira, Harris, Mullins, and Schechter. Thus we get an introduction to the songs with considerably less instruments than "Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home" but at the same time much less sparse than "Solo Recordings at Home". "What Will Come", "Nations", and "All Soul's Rising" made their debuts on the live album. "What Will Come" is a grim song of foreboding, which is strangely pleasing overall effect and "Nations" has a catchiness to it, the meaning of which, despite the inclusion of the lyrics, still totally eludes me. Live and performed by the core musicians, the sound of these songs is not all that different from late-era Swans, although perhaps overall less dense, which is nonetheless a great delight if you are a left-over Swans fan still following Gira's music-making journey. On the new studio album, the additional instrumentation transforms these songs, and in some sense, sacrifices some of the visceral energy present in the live recordings, exchanging it again for additional layers of depth. Whether this exchange is for the better or the worse, depends upon the listener's personal disposition, and certainly there are parties in both camps to be found. Last November, Gira released another "official bootleg", titled "Living '02', of a live solo show from Lisbon. This cdr has a different feel that "Solo Recordings at Home", principally, I think because of the presence of the audience. There is a palpable difference in Gira's voice in the songs sung at home alone and those sung before the audience in Portugal. Here for the first time, we were treated to "Palisades", a Gira gem, in terms of simultaneous remorse and condemnation. On "Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home", "Palisades" is accompanied by a gentle percussion and an abrupt clavichord-sounding organ. The consistent element is Gira's sonorous voice. "Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home" does contain several songs making their first public appearance., the "The Family God", standing out among them. These songs feature the heavy instrumentation, which characterizes the entire album. (This review continued in second post.)