If with each word we win a victory over nothingness, it is only the better to endure its reign. We die in proportion with the words which we fling around us…Those who speak have no secrets. And we all speak. We betray ourselves, we exhibit our heart; executioner of the unspeakable, each of us labors to destroy all the mysteries, beginning with our own. And if we meet others, it is to degrade ourselves together in a race to the void, whether in the exchange of ideas, schemes or confessions. Curiosity has provoked not only the first fall but the countless ones of every day of our lives.
Life is only that impatience to fall, to fail, to prostitute the soul’s virginal solitudes by dialogue, ageless and everyday negation of Paradise. Man should listen only to himself in the endless ecstasy of the intransmissible. Word, should create words for his own silences and assents audible only to his regrets. But he is the chatterbox of the universe; he speaks in the name of others; his self loves the plural. And anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an impostor.
There is only the artist whose lie is not a total one, for he invents only himself. Outside of the surrender to the incommunicable, the suspension amid our mute and unconsoled anxieties, life is merely a fracas on an unmapped terrain, and the universe a geometry striken with epilepsy.
E M Cioran
(1911-1995)
As far as I’m concerned, Swans is by far the most intense, transcending, infinite and sublime live experience I’ve ever had. Ever. All my life I’ve been searching for the most extreme and thought provoking live experience, and having found Swans I immediately arrived at a bittersweet realization…On one side, I feel very fortunate to have seen Michael Gira on stage twice already (two more times this year!), and feel this incredible whirlpool of emotions he stirs inside you…On the other side, I am convinced that this is it, there’s just nothing that can top this thing; No more boundaries to push, Swans is it for me.
I can’t quite put it in words what they transform into when on stage, but it feels that Michael Gira & Co come from another dimension, from another galaxy. To me it’s more than the word “music” could ever come close to define, it’s more like a monster with a sardonic smile that swallows everything and all, but not before it brings the world to its knees, offering a radical purification of life by means of inner torture.
Swans is the executioner’s laughter, the vision of death served on a silver tray, the desperate search for love between salvation and damnation, it’s eternity and paradox wrapped in agony, the tranquil negation of all future and hopes. It just does not feel like music but more like the ultimate madness, a burning fire set at the very root of life not to destroy it, but to give it a different kind of heat through post-apocalyptic visions.
Continue reading: Transylvanian Hungerrr Blog: Roadburn Festival 2011 – Day 3.
Images and words by Stefan Raduta
for Day 1 click here
for Day 2 click here
Tags: michael gira, Roadburn, Roadburn 2011, Roadburn Festival, Roadburn Festival 2011, Stefan Raduta, swans, Transylvanian Hungerrr
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 at 8:39 pm and is filed under 2011, Festival News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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