DOVE YELLOW SWANS - LIVE DURING WAR CRIMES CD (RTB#12) REVIEWS ARTNOISE.NET A bit over a year ago, I received my first taste of Dove Yellow Swans when the kind people at Narnack Records sent me a copy of their first complete full-length Bring The Neon War Home. Released under the unusually straightforward moniker of “The Yellow Swans” (as opposed to “D Yellow Swans,” “Die Yellow Swans,” “Free Detained Yellow Swans,” or another of their ever-expanding list of pseudonyms), Bring The Neon War Home definitely peaked my curiosity about this band. On the whole the album wasn’t phenomenal, it didn’t particularly change the way I thought about music, but it was nonetheless a solid document from a band that was staking out some interesting territory. It was, quite simply, an impressive piece of music. Now flash forward to a couple weeks ago, when I received my second taste of what Dove Yellow Swans had to offer on this newly released, newly remastered compilation of barely available D YS tracks. I had heard good things about this band in the interim between BtNWH’s release and now, but I would wager it probably took somewhere in the neighborhood of ten minutes listening time for me to really comprehend that without a doubt I was listening to one of the best noise acts currently in existence. Miles beyond impressive, Live During War Crimes is the kind of record that reaffirms one’s faith in the creative power of today’s experimental scene. As on BtNWH, the tracks on Live During War Crimes are generally a hodgepodge of electric and electronic instrumentation, beats, feedback, drones, screams, and loops strung together like the soundtrack to some raver bloodbath. Rich in texture and tonal interplay, everything on this record unfolds slowly, rumbling forth like storm clouds or a line of wrecked freight trains twisting steadily into rusted knots. Unlike some of their notable peers, Dove Yellow Swans’ music has always seemed to seethe with a kind of dystopian terror that draws as much from the fucked-up circumstances of American life and death as it does from the usual considerations of improvisational knob-twisting. It’s minimalist music, but it’s a dangerous minimalism; an abstraction that echoes the sounds of gunfire and collapsing skylines, equal parts cluster bombs and dance beats. The degree to which social realism appears to be so deeply ingrained in what Dove Yellow Swans is sets them well apart from simple noise-makers like Prurient or Wolf Eyes. If anything, I would say that Dove Yellow Swans’ music is the closest living relative to the deeply psychological proto-punk of Suicide or the brutal no wave of their quasi-namesakes The Swans. For its part, Live During War Crimes is the best showcase of D YS’ clear talents that I’ve heard to date and generally a much more consistent record than Bring The Neon War Home with its comparative lack of subtlety or compositional nuance. It’s probably fruitless to pick out favorite cuts on this uniformly superb release but if pressed, I’d have to say that the 11-eleven minute second track stands out as a definite highlight on Live During War Crimes, escalating as it does from vacant feedback chirping into a frenzy of apocalyptic break-beats before dissolving back into ether. If you’re even remotely a fan of this type of music, I highly recommend that you check this record out. This is without a doubt, the most exciting noise record I’ve heard in a long time and I’d even say there’s a fair shot that this is one of the best things I’ve come across all year. As cliched as it may sound, Dove Yellow Swans are a band to watch out for. FRACTALICTY This has been a big year for Bay Area noise combos, with loads of releases, write ups, tours and much higher profiles in general for bands like the Skaters and the Yellow Swans. This time around, Dove Yellow Swans (they often switch between different D-words reflecting the sound or mood of each particular record) have taken a handful of older releases and chopped 'em up, and re-assembled and re-worked them into an entirely new beast, forty seven minutes of sputtering, splattery, free noise, drone drenched, druggy and damaged, malfunctioning electronic chaos. However, unlike most noise outfits, the Yellow Swans know a thing or two about dynamics, and are quite adept at taking all sorts of horrible noises and weaving them into an entirely listenable, and often quite gorgeous whole. Drum machines spit out all sorts of random beats and sounds, stumbling and clattering and careening around your head like shotgun pellets, beneath a thick wash of shrieking feedback, sick sounding synths, super processed vocals, and distorted and dizzying guitars. A little bit Wolf Eyes, a little bit Sunroof!, a little bit Merzbow, but all twisted and tangled into it's own deliriously damaged Yellow Swan-ed shape. Packaged in a cool oversized cardboard gatefold, with a bit of black felt to protect the disc. Cover art by Devendra Banhart. And as always, extremely limited! HEARTATTACK #48 noisy noise noise... dove yellow swans is all about the experimental, improvisational jams, with lots of feedback, electronics, guitar, and more! there guys arent as slowed down or droney as Sunn O))), Khanate, and that whole crew, but they definitely have a sound that is discordant, jarring, and with much central melody. if noise is your thing, this is probably right up your alley. six re-mastered songs that were initially recorded live, on one great comp CD, with cover art from Devandra Barnhart, with lots of skulls and arrows! CJ LOSTATSEA.NET About six years ago, while visiting before I made the permanent move to SF, a friend and I were supposed to interview Fat Mike and Lars Fredrickson at the Warped Tour for a FatWreckChords affiliated website. The interviews never materialized and my friend and I split and saw the Fleshies at Mission Records instead, which was about a million times more punk rock than the Warped Tour. Afterwards, my friend’s friend picked us up and we went back to his warehouse space in Oakland. Sitting in a bare concrete room, half-drunk, and not really sure where I was, my friend’s friend proceeded to play me Black Dice for the first time and I proceeded to think that I was going to be brutally murdered in a bare concrete room in a warehouse space in Oakland, half-drunk and not really sure where I was. If it would have been Dove Yellow Swans playing instead of Black Dice, the outcome would have been the same. VITALWEEKLY.NET The band Yellow Swans are sometimes called something with a changing 'D' word, such as Dark Yellow Swans, Die Yellow Swans, Dreamed Yellow Swans or here as Dove Yellow Swans. It's a duo made out of Pete Swanson on drum machine, vocals and electronics and Gabriel Mindel Saloman on guitar, vocoder and feedback. The six cuts on 'Live During War Crimes' were recorded in concert in May and June 2004 and previously released on obscure CDR compilations, but now re-mastered for a proper CD release. I must admit I was quite surprised by this lot, as I expected things to be much more noisier than this, like a furious wall of feedback. It's not that the music is by any means soft, but it's main thing is the diversity and balance between the various instruments. The drum machine marches on, feedback from various effect pedals and the guitar play interesting lines, while vocals howls are way down in the mix. The CD builds up in intensity, starting rather soft (for a noise band), ending in a fiery crescendo of cascading tones, fading out during the final (untitled) piece. As such this is a highly pleasant work of noise, an example for many noise makers out there. Excellent stuff. (FdW) GEIGER.DK Din billedtekstDove Yellow Swans, som impro-noise-duellanterne Pete Swanson og Gabriel Saloman i øjeblikket kalder sig, leverede med Live During War Crimes et af årets bedste bud på fremtidsmusik, om ikke ligefrem fremtidens musik (desværre). Med tårnhøje ambitioner og en nærmest sart free noise, der overstyrer i retning af det ambiente – opskriften i grove træk: to dele skælvende miniaturemelodiske katastrofer til en del skærende plæneklipperfræs – skaber de en art dadaistisk musikkirurgi. Det er hvidglødende meditationsmusik for amputationsfetichister og gribende dansemusik for autistiske munke i en storm af ildfluer. VOLCANICTONGUE.COM Major collection of ferocious/destroyed live material from Yellow Swans circa May/June 2004 compiled from a bunch of releases previously available on Scratch and Sniff Entertainment, Hung Like A Horse?!? and Collective Jyrk. Provides an ideal overview for neophytes while the maximalist programming makes it one of their most brain-zonking straight-through listens to date. Comes in a beautiful colour card gatefold with art by, uh, Devendra Banhart and a suitably sweaty pic of the guys in ‘action’. AQUARIUSRECORDS.ORG This has been a big year for Bay Area noise combos, with loads of releases, write ups, tours and much higher profiles in general for bands like the Skaters and the Yellow Swans. Oakland free noise duo, the Yellow Swans, also run their own label Jyrk, responsible for lots of AQ favorites recently, including the Yellow Swans / Grey Daturas 2 cd-r collaboration we listed not too long ago. This time around, Dove Yellow Swans (they often switch between different D-words reflecting the sound or mood of each particular record) have taken a handful of older releases and chopped 'em up, and re-assembled and re-worked them into an entirely new beast, forty seven minutes of sputtering, splattery, free noise, drone drenched, druggy and damaged, malfunctioning electronic chaos. However, unlike most noise outfits, the Yellow Swans know a thing or two about dynamics, and are quite adept at taking all sorts of horrible noises and weaving them into an entirely listenable, and often quite gorgeous whole. Drum machines spit out all sorts of random beats and sounds, stumbling and clattering and careening around your head like shotgun pellets, beneath a thick wash of shrieking feedback, sick sounding synths, super processed vocals, and distorted and dizzying guitars. A little bit Wolf Eyes, a little bit Sunroof!, a little bit Merzbow, but all twisted and tangled into it's own deliriously damaged Yellow Swan-ed shape. SELLFISH.DE Der Mensch ist ein sehr visuell geprägtes Lebewesen. Aus diesem Grund sehen wir, wenn wir träumen, Bilder. Jeder von uns weiß, wie ein Alptraum aussehen kann. Aber hat sich schon mal jemand ernsthaft Gedanken darüber gemacht, wie ein Alptraum klingen kann? Zwei Typen aus Portland haben das wohl und präsentieren seit 2001 der Öffentlichkeit unter dem Namen Yellow Swans (das voranstehende Wort wechselt ständig, beginnt aber immer mit einem D) ihre Entwürfe. Auf dem hier vorliegenden Tonträger fängt der Gegenentwurf zu dem, was man gemeinhin unter dem Begriff „Musik“ versteht schon bei der Präsentation an: Die Songs haben keine Titel und teilweise ist der Klang sowieso nur ein Fluss, in dem lediglich der CD Player eine Markierung hinterlässt (wiederum visuell, nicht hörbar). Auch der Terminus „Voice“, der in der Instrumentierung aufgeführt wird ist genau das und nichts anderes. Es ist kein Wort auszumachen, geschweige denn Gesang. Die Stimme ist ein Mosaikstein im Gesamtklangbild. Hysterische Schreie irgendwo weit hinter dieser Wall of Sound. Hinter diesem Meer aus Feedback. Hinter den elektronischen Störgeräuschen, dem Blubbern, Flirren, Sirren und Rauschen. Um sich diesem Album zu nähern, muss man alle bisherigen Hörgewohnheiten ablegen. Selbst die üblichen Noise Referenzen wie Melt Banana, Arab on Radar oder die neue kanadische Hoffnung AIDS Wolf, wirken im Vergleich zu Yellow Swans konventionell und handzahm, denn diese Band hebt Noise auf einen neuen Level. Darin besteht ihre Leistung. - Steffen Kern. DEEP WATER ACRES Since we’ve mentioned the Dove Yellow Swans (the first word changes regularly, but always starts with a ‘D’), may as well get more specific. The Oakland/Portland duo has been making a post-Throbbing Gristle noise racket for a few years now, dropping more limited CD-Rs and collaborations than I’ve been able to snatch up in that time. Their sound can vary considerably from release to release, which makes Live During War Crimes a prime intro. As one might suspect, it was captured live during the first months of the Iraq war back in 2004. This expanded CD, which incorporates the original CD-R plus some extras, comes via Sweden’s Release the Bats and features guitars, feedback, tape loops, moans, screams and other damaged noise generators conjuring sound storms that build from piercing tones to decimated electro-industrial swells. The Yellow Swans are one of the few bands to take this kind of earth rot to new places, frothing over with all manner of strange bacterial life and writhing in the orgiastic trans-species possibilities. New life! NOISEBLOG A couple of months ago I wrote a review of Dreamed Yellow Swans (by Yellow Swans) saying that I didn’t find it a very convincing release (cause produced in a far too clean way and a rhythm section that didn’t really stand out). As Pete Swanson pointed out to me Dreamed Yellow Swans is a reissue of some material recorded way back in 2002 - A few days ago I received 2 CD’s of Pete with more recent material. “Live during warcrimes”, released on Release The Bats is the first one I’ve listened to. The CD contains 6 untitled tracks (total running time is 46 minutes), all recorded live in may and june 2004 and all previously released on different labels. The sound on the CD is clean, coming straight from the desk, so you get the sound uncluttered, not distorted by speakers that are on the edge of explosion, and without drunk audience noises. But more important: the 6 tracks on this record stand strong, just as is the case with the Yellow Swans & Cherry Point collab-CD that I reviewed a few days earlier, which is also very clean for a live performance - Point is that on this CD the power and energy that I experienced during the live show of Yellow Swans at Dramarama is clearly present, something that’s lacking on Dreamed Yellow Swans - The rhythm-section on Live during Warcrimes is a lot fatter than on Dreamed, and moreover used in a more creative, by times quite catchy kind of way, noise and beats are well blended on this CD. Though played live the several layers of sound make sense. (Or maybe not “though” but “just because” they are played live). I’m not going into a full-length review of each of the tracks, overall the tracks are pleasantly varied, some are more harsher, some are more rhythmic oriented, or just plain abstract, coming close to junk-electronics. This for sure would be a great record to learn to know Yellow Swans. Get it from Release The Bats, or mail yellowswans at jyrk dot com.