Swans Announce Leaving Meaning, Share “It’s Coming It’s Real”

Swans are Leaving Meaning with their 15th studio album, the band announced Thursday. The follow-up to 2016’s The Glowing Man arrives Oct. 25 on Mute/Young God Records and is preceded by lead single “It’s Coming It’s Real.”

Leaving Meaning marks Swans’ latest reinvention, as frontman Michael Gira explains in a statement:

Leaving Meaning is the first Swans album to be released since I dissolved the lineup of musicians that constituted Swans from 2010-2017. Swans is now comprised of a revolving cast of musicians, selected for both their musical and personal character, chosen according to what I intuit best suits the atmosphere in which I’d like to see the songs I’ve written presented. In collaboration with me, the musicians, through their personality, skill and taste, contribute greatly to the arrangement of the material. They’re all people whose work I admire and whose company I personally enjoy.

Leaving Meaning is written and produced by Gira, with contributions from recent and former members of Swans, and members of Gira’s ‘90s/’00s band Angels of Light, plus guest artists Anna and Maria von Hausswolff, Ben Frost, The Necks, Baby Dee, and A Hawk and a Hacksaw.

Swans released The Glowing Man in 2016 amid disturbing allegations against Gira, whom Larkin Grimm accused of raping her in a since-deleted Facebook post. Gira initially dismissed Grimm’s accusation as “a slanderous lie,” later acknowledging that “a consensual romantic moment” occurred between them, but maintaining his innocence. It remains unclear what, if anything, became of the allegations.

You can listen to “It’s Coming It’s Real” below and find the details of Leaving Meaning further down.

Leaving Meaning Tracklist:
01. Hums
02. Annaline
03. The Hanging Man
04. Amnesia – with Anna and Maria von Hausswolff on backing vocals
05. Leaving Meaning – feat. The Necks
06. Sunfucker – with Anna and Maria von Hausswolff on backing vocals
07. Cathedrals of Heaven
08. The Nub – with Baby Dee on guest vocals, also feat. The Necks
09. It’s Coming It’s Real – feat. Anna and Maria von Hausswolff on backing vocals
10. Some New Things – digital / CD only
11. What Is This
12. My Phantom Limb

Leaving Meaning Album Art: