#tbt 1997: I listened to SWANS for the first when I was fifteen and on the year that they had broken up. I looked out my bedroom window, feeling extricated from the world, as Michael Gira sang cynical lyrics about fame/music industry/sexed-up pop stars in verse-chorus-verse form, and suddenly he spits “Sexual Transcendence Is Reserved For The Wealthy”. These maxims conflating sex with power and dominance caught my attention, I didn’t really know the actual definition of transcendence because English is not my first language, after all. While it was not describing the world I knew firsthand (in my rural, very heteronormative hometown, all my classmates were sixteen and pregnant -and I was presumed to be queer, while my mother, who was a nurse practitioner and Epidemiologist, talked about sexually transmitted diseases pretty much all the time), I somehow had an idea from the lyrics, again, of a quality of life that speaks of a privilege not everybody could have. Perhaps not the ideal language for a young person but nonetheless, the young person was not buying into this short-sighted yet glowing concept girls had to embrace of sexuality as a ready-to-propagate (as soon as possible) thing, either. And, uh, I was angsty AF, too. So, so bored. Fast-forward to this year, where the album is remastered and available since April and I had no idea because I’m so off the loop.

I see a lot of entrails, especially in the beginning. She’s obsessed with the body, what’s inside of it, and nature. Even the mucous membranes of the nose are fascinating to her and she highlights this with her masks, etc. (or other music videos in the past where she has had fluid coming out of her nostrils). Then everything becomes very vibrant. In the first part she’s like this moth sitting on internal organs with bacterial growth and then she’s a jellyfish and it’s all primary colors and shining her own light. 

“Since we broke up / I’m using lipstick again”…