- Swans were here earlier this year for the illustrious ATP festival and it was a consistent assault on both the ears and stamina, as it was a boiling hot affair that unintentionally matched the reported simulated sweat lodge events the band enforced upon their audience during their early days. Not Here/Not Now is a compilation of the bands world tour supporting their last original full-length The Seer, taking the best live portions of the band on said tour and is an excellent window into how they've combined elements of the past with their current incarnation, while also hinting at the group’s future.

The record itself sits at just under two hours and a lot of its material is made up of new tracks performed on the tour. Things open with the monstrous 45 minute combination of The Seer/Bring, The Sun/Toussaint L'ouveture, which, stand alone, demonstrates how different Swans are to other bands that attempt this genre. It's also interesting to hear the way The Seer has been reinterpreted, comparing the live to the original. The Sun and Toussaint feel like more of a continuation of it in this context, as opposed to stand alone, original works, but that should not be a deterrent when getting into this mammoth piece.

Another new track of note comes in the form of Nathalie Neal, sounding as if it had been lifted from the closing sections of Spiritualized's Cop Shoot Cop but then evolving into this tribal freak out, lead by Michael Gira's choice in vocals, and ending with him commenting "We just blew an amplifier thank you," as everything ends abruptly. One of the group's classics from their heyday, Coward, has made it on here and it is definitely designed to be a heavier sludgier affair then its earlier industrial incarnations. But what makes it a highlight again is Gira's delivery which matches the brutalised lyrics as he whispers and then screams and the music itself gradually grows and evolves as the track progresses.

A surprise comes about two thirds of the way through with the inclusion of a couple of demo tracks. Kirstin Surprise opens with Gira delivering a short mood setting message about the rain (which is audible throughout the recording), then, he plays a rather lovely acoustic guitar and the track itself continues to flirts with the idea of psych-folk, explored even further on following track Screen Shot. Things migrate back into the live realm with closers She Loves Us! and Oxygen both of which are new tracks and hot dog! If they don't make you excited about a new Swans record, nothing will.

The only real criticism of this live record is that the recording quality of some of the live material on here varies and while generally good, sometimes the levels are all over the place; however, with a band like Swans and all the stuff they're using on stage, something will slip through the cracks, and anyway, in my opinion live records are generally deteriorating in quality (Nothing has ever lived up to The Tom, Mark and Travis Show, really). But what you get here is still largely, of a high quality and, standalone, it is a solid release by the band in the context of their illustrious career.

- Brad Armstrong.