The Body Lovers / The Body Haters – Compilation CD (1998/1999/2005)

May 21, 2023

I’ve had this CD for donkey’s years but broke it out recently after the annoucement of the track listing for the new 2022 Swans album, The Beggar. The CD version of this album contains the apparent third part of the Body Lovers’ trilogy (part 2 being the “Look At Me Go” suite on disc 2 of My Father… from 2010 – which I also need to revisit).

I’ve never been that hot on The Body Haters disc, although there is nothing really at fault here, but it doesn’t jump out and grab me like The Body Lovers does. On the surface of it, The Body Lovers is more of the enormously moving and beautiful yet terrifying drones that we got a taste of on Swans’ Soundtracks For The Blind. As The Body Lovers doesn’t really break into “music” (except for a short refrain of the 1990s version of “I Crawled”), and it certainly doesn’t have any vocals or lyrics, the more visceral element of these droning beasts can be truly appreciated.

As I’ve kind of already said, it is as touching as it is horrifying, and I would recommend this as listening to any Swans fan, particularily of the Soundtracks… era. Listening to this thing on full pelt again for the purposes of this review I am struck by how much of this sounds like a soundtrack to a film that never was. Anyone who follows Michael Gira will know of his deep love of film and literature, and it immediately struck me as odd that the man has never worked on some sort of soundtrack or score. Records like this or Soundtracks (or To Be Kind or Glowing Man haha) prove that he is more than capable to do so, so I have started to wonder why it hasn’t happened.

Anyway – TLDR – if you’ve not heard this thing, please try it out. It will reward your attention enormously, like most Swans or Gira work.