MUSIC, if it’s doing its job effectively, should be moving. It should reach inside your stomach and pull out whatever core you’re hiding; it should access every fear, desire, hope, and either embody them brilliantly or stomp them out like crumbled ashes. In a way, it should be poetry, a medium that has the power to actually evoke a physical reaction, be it gut-wrenching joy or passionate disgust. It’s a language in which it is difficult to be fluent, because there’s no one way to speak it; there are no predetermined boundaries other than the somewhat transient limitations of the instruments themselves, and that can be intimidating.
The Swords Project, a glimmering Portland eight-piece, has created its own musical dialect, approaching a textural, modern sound from a composer’s standpoint. By utilizing the sort of aesthetic more common within slower Handel or quicker Rachmaninoff, they’ve found their way around the primal barriers of communication, speaking with spongy violins, subtly low-tide white noise, and a breathtaking wash of drum fills like dip-thongs. They swell and jaunt, communicating not what has been taught, per se, but what is innate, like the sounds a baby makes as its vocal chords form and push out.
The Swords’ new four-song CD is a symphony of heartbreak, flight, impermanence. It begins nearly spiritually, with “shannonsweddingsong,” a crushing dive into benevolence. From there, the album is powerful, rolling, with a bass that pushes your ribcage flush with your stomach. Vocals are thankfully sporadic, often only unintelligible whispering. They’re speaking from their guts; lyrics might sully the language of the Swords.
Live, they’re equally devastating. At their CD release show (July 2, Lola’s Room), I was compelled to cry. They took my language from me. I turned to my friend and could only look at him with strained quietude. He muttered, glass-eyed: “They’re super great. Super great.”
The Swords appeal to a complex Id, one that’s able to comprehend the magnitude of an experience, but can only throw hot tantrums. Their music is light–so light, it takes your breath and blinds you, like an angel you’re simply too human to gaze upon.
Sometimes, it’s impossible to understand what music does; it just happens, an emotional Big Bang that is somehow, indescribably altering. The Swords have the rare ability to be moving and eloquent. All we can really do is appreciate it.