Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Swans: "Oxygen"

---

Swans: "Oxygen" Posted: 15 Apr 2014 01:48 PM PDT   The latter-day Swans have become synonymous with a certain imposing sprawl, specializing in the sort of colossal, half-hour long pieces that require you to book off time in your iCal just to listen to them. By comparison, "Oxygen", the second teaser released from the upcoming To Be Kind, is practically a pop single, not just for its relavite brevity (only eight minutes!), but its structural simplicity and jugular-clenching force. Forsaking the band's usual ominous build-ups/breakdowns and carefully orchestrated chaos for sheer, unrelenting pig-fuckery, "Oxygen"—which shares a title, some lyrics, and absolutely nothing else with a 2010 solo-acoustic Michael Gira track—is the closest thing to a straight-ahead rocker the 21st-century Swans have produced. (And tellingly, it's the rare To Be Kind track previewed on last year's live set, Not Here/Not Now, that came out of the studio sounding just as filthy as it did in concert.) It's a reminder that, even as the scope of their albums turns evermore epic, Swans still belong to a tradition of deranged, debased punk that the connects the bruising attack of the Jesus Lizard's "Wheelchair Epidemic," the woof-woof feralism of the Birthday Party's "Happy Birthday," and the sax 'n' violence of the Stooges' "Fun House." "Feed me now!" Gira screams at the song's precise half-way point, but "Oxygen" is a song about breathing that doesn't give you any chance to do so.

Ought: "Habit" Posted: 14 Apr 2014 02:06 PM PDT Montreal's Ought clearly dream big—there's a natural confidence to "Habit" that makes it feel like the work of old hands at this game. Instead, it's among the first recordings they've put out into the world, from the LP More Than Any Other Day, which sees release on April 29 via Constellation. The natural charisma of singer/guitarist Tim Beeler burns right through the song, with his versatile voice swooping up to the high notes and beautifully crashing down to near-spoken word passages. The central sound of "Habit" is torn from a hybrid of angular punk and rock orthodoxy, drawing them into a lineage that includes artists such as Television and Elvis Costello. There's plenty of promise here, especially when Beeler guides his band into the spaghetti-like morass of guitars and vocal shrieks at the song's close. "There's something you believe in," he sings at the start, positively demanding people to believe along with him.