0:00 Screen Shot 8:04 Just a Little Boy (for Chester Burnett) 20:44 A Little God in My Hands 27:52 Bring The Sun Toussaint L'Ouverture 1:01:58 Some Things.

To Be Kind is the thirteenth studio album by American experimental rock band Swans, released on May 12, 2014. Critical reception of the album was very positive, continuing a string of well-received albums from the band

To Be Kind by SWANS, released 13 May 2014 1. Screen Shot 2. Just A Little Boy (For Chester Burnett) 3. A Little God In My Hands 4. Bring The Sun Toussaint L'Ouverture 5. Some Things We Do 6. She Loves Us 7. Kirsten Supine 8. Oxygen 9. Nathalie Neal 10. To Be Kind A NOTE FROM MICHAEL GIRA: Hello There, We (Swans) have recently completed our new album. It is called To Be Kind. The release date is set for May 13, 2014. The album was produced.

But most have since been subjected to dramatic embellishment or rearrangement  . And what makes To Be Kind so compelling is how that goal seems both fully realized yet forever out of reach at the same time.

Swans are a band on a roll. To Be Kind is this years first masterpiece. A stunning, sprawling record that stands tall in a yer surrounded by the yapping mice of attention seeking chancers, a stunning work of art in a gallery of fools and the totem release in a year that’s also full of intriguingly ground breaking records

We (Swans) have recently completed our new album. The album was produced by me, and it was recorded by the venerable John Congleton at Sonic Ranch, outside El Paso Texas, and further recordings and mixing were accomplished at John’s studio in Dallas, Texas. A good portion of the material for this album was developed live during the Swans tours of 2012/13. Much of the music was otherwise conjured in the studio environment. The recordings and entire process of this album were generously and perhaps vaingloriously funded by Swans supporters through our auspices at younggodrecords. com via the release of a special, handmade 2xCD live album entitled Not Here, Not Now.

To Be Kind ‎(2xCD, Album, Promo). Young God Records, Mute. Far be it from me to try and glean any further nuggets of wisdom out of this thing, so I'll just wrap it up by coming straight to the point. To Be Kind' is the sort of record you'd be a fool to pass up. It's the product of massive effort and is a near-herculean undertaking, disregard the chatter you're going to encounter in the coming weeks and months about what this song means or where that song was designed to take your thoughts. Take it in and hold that poisonous cloud deep in your consciousness.

And yet among To Be Kind’s greatest assets are the points where it differs most from The Seer. The album kicks off with ‘Screen Shot’, an eight-minute introductory track featuring a simple, repeated acoustic riff upon which layers of guitar, vocals and percussion are gradually built until ending in a swirling crescendo of noise-rock. Though similar in structure, the almost ‘funky’ tonal shifts of the guitar and vocals make the track a far cry from the beautifully monotonous cultish chanting of ‘Lunacy’, The Seer’s opener.

Swans have always made albums that are meant to get you to sit down and really listen, but with To Be Kind, that seems especially true. The dynamic range on the album is, quite literally, startling.