Water Flowing Underground

The Swans have always been an interesting band, even if the songs were not always that good. Their new release "White Light from the Mouth of Infinity" was reviewed on Pitchfork:

"For a while, though, they were the most mutable of bands. In a half-decade span beginning in the mid '80s, they swiftly transformed from bone-crushing no wave brutalists to God-fearing gothic rockers, and then to featherweight neo-folkies. White Light from the Mouth of Infinity and Love of Life, originally released in 1991 and 1992, respectively, marked the end of that metamorphosis, as the band settled into a sound at once songful and vast, luminous as a glass menagerie and forceful as a falling anvil."

This got me thinking about constants in life that are all your own, and redound to the innocence of childhood. Doing music your whole life undergirds all those shifts. You just do a different form of the same thing, and it takes you all the way through. Artists who have been doing their thing for a long time have sunk loyalties, which is (mostly) a good thing. It's the "water flowing underground".

Childhood is not necessarily the ground your life is built upon, but rather the pedestal on which the statue of your life sits.

[12/22/2024: Steven Wilson has always been creatively eclectic, from the metallic edge of Porcupine Tree to more pop things. I think this is the best way, but the biggest risk. If you don’t explore your ideas what you do is bound to become repetitive and routine and the well is dry.]