Swans - The Glowing Man [Full Live Bootleg Remake Album]

~Tracklist~
Legend: (song number) (disc number-track number) "Title" time start - time end (track length)

01. 1-1 "Cloud of Forgetting" 00:00 - 14:25 (14m 25s)
02. 1-2 "Cloud of Unknowing" 14:25 - 1:06:21 (51m 56s)
03. 2-1 "The World Looks Red/The World Looks Black (The Man Who Refused to be Unhappy)" 1:06:21 - 1:32:38 (26m 17s)
04. 2-2 "People Like Us" 1:32:38 - 1:36:01 (3m 23s)
05. 2-3 "Frankie M." 1:36:01 - 2:21:28 (45m 27s)
06. 3-1 "When Will I Return?" 2:21:28 - 2:28:23 (6m 55s)
07. 3-2 "The Glowing Man" 2:28:23 - 3:09:35 (41m 12s)

~Information~
It's complete! The final installation of the Swans Bootleg Trilogy - The Glowing Man. This massive album clocks in at almost 3 hours and 10 minutes, and the three 20+ minute tracks on the album easily sprawl past the 40 minute mark here, with "Cloud of Unknowing" not afraid to breach 50 minutes. This will not be my final live bootleg album, however, as I plan to do The Burning World and possibly Soundtracks as well.
The two track run on the studio album - "Cloud of Forgetting" and "Cloud of Unknowing" - fill an entire disc. The former is a simple exercise in playing the studio version, with extended structures, glistening improvisational instrumentation, and robust climaxes. The latter is no exercise; a ripping, weaving torrential trial for the enduring human psyche is a more accurate assessment. Doubling the size of the studio version, just the intro preceding the rhythmic stomping of the signature groove satisfies a fulfilling post-rock track. The meditational outro now transformed to a 10+ minute hurricane of noise, realizing you had only finished track 2 is discovering your placement in the eye of the storm.
"The World Looks Red/The World Looks Black", like the preceding track, has accompanied it in the doubling of the composition's length. This track, however, is unique out of all 3 trilogy albums in that I merged two separate performances into one massive slab of sound. After the extended gradient between the two halves, "The World Looks Black" suddenly sparks into the hi-hat groove of "The Man Who Refused to be Unhappy", a tribute to the two songs' evolutionary history.
We now have a sandwich of two sparse, charming, personal acoustic performances of "People Like Us" and "When Will I Return" by Michael Gira bookending the massive 45 minute version of "Frankie M.".
This stretched behemoth, while simply extending the 3 parts of the original, preserves dynamics only found in their live habitat. An exemplary segment being the guitar noise wall; serving 3 and a half minutes on the studio version, this unfolding jam lasts a whole 9 minutes before entering the main force of the piece. Don't assume it will bore you, as this short movement develops its own composition, birthing crescendos and tapering of noise and brutality through Gira's conducting.
The final stand, "The Glowing Man" departs from the 3-act form of the studio cut. The 18 and a half minutes preceding the signature groove lives an eldritch organism of sound, incomparable and alien from earlier renditions, birthed from the 6 fathers' intricate dances on stage. Those used to the versions on the studio and Deliquescence will find themselves in awe at the growing monstrosity left for them to behold. Then, the piano falls, the whole thing coalesces together, and 41 minutes - blossoming from 3 hours and 10 minutes - have passed you by like the wind carrying leaves to the sea.

~Mega folder~
The Mega folder below includes uncompressed WAV files of the songs, further information about the recordings/performances, 2000x2000 custom cover art by me, uncut recordings of the performances used on this album and 8 unique The Glowing Man era deep cuts - courtesy of the Swans Live Archive ran by ‪@strangerecordings4648‬
These rare recordings include:
An acoustic Michael Gira solo performance of the then unperformed "The Knot"
The earliest recording of The Knot, brushing up to a meager 34 minutes
The longest The Knot (excluding the 57 minute GlavClub performance with the 10 minute drone intro) pulsing through 54 minutes
The embryonic form of Cloud of Forgetting (known then as "Don't Go") with a discarded intro never seen elsewhere
The moment Apostate/Cloud of Unforming took the form of Cloud of Unknowing
The first performance of The Glowing Man (known as Bring The Sun/Black-Eyed Man) with The Glowing Man segment's groove undeveloped, resembling Toussaint L'Ouverture much more.
The final time Bring The Sun was played in whole with conjunction with The Glowing Man
A performance of The Glowing Man in 2016 bearing heavily similarities of the version on Deliquescence

Check out the Mega folder: https://mega dot nz/folder/kFYAmYwZ#61WctXQ_sqizoXdv0Lfy-A
And the Swans live archive: https://mega dot nz/folder/pYshnYpT#yJr6mbVGBTTLqYF5idiMAA/folder/oR8iiKrC