Bleep

In 1996, Swans released their tenth LP Soundtracks For The Blind. At the same time, the group dropped Die Tür Ist Zu, an EP that contained German-language versions of some of the Soundtracks For The Blind material interspersed with live recordings. Previously the record has only been available in Germany as a CD release, but now Mute have decided to issue Die Tür Ist Zu on double-LP. Despite being seven tracks long, the record runs to almost an hour in length. This is down in part to its monolithic opener ‘Ligeti’s Breath/Hilflos Kind’, a twenty-two minute epic that swings from screeching drones to Southern Gothic balladry and back again. The rest of the track list is as overwhelming and grand as anything else in the Swans discography (and that’s saying something). An incomparable record from an incomparable band.