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The Knot
Library of Congress Number: 2021916918
Lyrics, stories, journal entries, archival journal images, artworks and photos of artworks.
- GenresMusicArtCollections
408 pages, Hardcover
Published June 1, 2022
42 people are currently reading
342 people want to read
About the author
Michael Gira
10 books228 followersMichael Rolfe Gira is an American musician, author, and artist. He is the main force behind the New York City musical group Swans and fronts Angels of Light. He is also the founder of Young God Records.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 20, 2022
An exhaustive, utterly engrossing collection of a life’s work dedicated to singularly extreme art, and to finding the beauty in ugliness. I was both terrified and enthralled the first time I heard Swans (it was Cop, and I was likely far too young for something so extreme), and I have been a fan of Gira’s ever since.
This collection of lyrics, stories, journals and art is a perfect encapsulation of Gira’s career.
This collection of lyrics, stories, journals and art is a perfect encapsulation of Gira’s career.
January 1, 2023
FFO: ATONALITY & NOT FEELING GOOD
“And we kill our pleasure for a fascist idea
And we consume delusion and unreality
And though your body’s warm, I know there’s nothing there
And I’ll pretend to be here,
and I’ll pretend to care”
The Knot is really something special. Gira’s writing has elements of Ligotti, Cioran, Schopenhauer, Bataille, and Lovecraft. The lyrics read like dark absurdist poetry and the journal entries/stories portray the narrator losing his mind in a spell of cosmic despair while spiraling in an infinite paradox. The style is shaped by decay, power dynamics, sex, bodies, hopelessness, emptiness, nausea, violence, and horror.
The visceral piercing of Swans’ music bursts through the pages of The Knot. For a creation drenched in misanthropy and anguish, this book explodes with character, flavor, sharpness, honesty, deceit, cleverness, emotion, and ecstasy.
If you liked “The Egg” then you will love this. Gira writes just as well as his predecessors who explored similar themes. I hope he writes a singular fleshed out text one day. It could be the next Conspiracy Against the Human Race.
“But what about the worlds I can’t imagine? Those are the worlds I want to know.”
Existence is so fucking weird and watching everything unfold feels otherworldly. Comfort emerges from the darkest corners and absurdity reveals itself the most normal situations. And we’re just here, flexing our muscles and stealing oxygen, living on a planet where there are only 3000 copies of The Knot.
TLDR: THE KNOT IS GOOD. IF YOU LIKE SWANS AND EXISTENTIAL HORROR YOU SHOULD GET A COPY BEFORE THEY’RE GONE FOREVER
“So I just want to thank you,
for killing your mind.
All the life that you breathe out,
well I’ll steal it for mine.”
🦢 🔪
“And we kill our pleasure for a fascist idea
And we consume delusion and unreality
And though your body’s warm, I know there’s nothing there
And I’ll pretend to be here,
and I’ll pretend to care”
The Knot is really something special. Gira’s writing has elements of Ligotti, Cioran, Schopenhauer, Bataille, and Lovecraft. The lyrics read like dark absurdist poetry and the journal entries/stories portray the narrator losing his mind in a spell of cosmic despair while spiraling in an infinite paradox. The style is shaped by decay, power dynamics, sex, bodies, hopelessness, emptiness, nausea, violence, and horror.
The visceral piercing of Swans’ music bursts through the pages of The Knot. For a creation drenched in misanthropy and anguish, this book explodes with character, flavor, sharpness, honesty, deceit, cleverness, emotion, and ecstasy.
If you liked “The Egg” then you will love this. Gira writes just as well as his predecessors who explored similar themes. I hope he writes a singular fleshed out text one day. It could be the next Conspiracy Against the Human Race.
“But what about the worlds I can’t imagine? Those are the worlds I want to know.”
Existence is so fucking weird and watching everything unfold feels otherworldly. Comfort emerges from the darkest corners and absurdity reveals itself the most normal situations. And we’re just here, flexing our muscles and stealing oxygen, living on a planet where there are only 3000 copies of The Knot.
TLDR: THE KNOT IS GOOD. IF YOU LIKE SWANS AND EXISTENTIAL HORROR YOU SHOULD GET A COPY BEFORE THEY’RE GONE FOREVER
“So I just want to thank you,
for killing your mind.
All the life that you breathe out,
well I’ll steal it for mine.”
🦢 🔪
June 20, 2023
Gira’s The Knot is probably the best book to start with for exploring the story of the Swans, one of the most loudest and important band of the history of rock (works like Children Of God were so important for the gothic culture, and Filth were a fondamental for the noise rock). In this book you literally can find everything about Michael Gira: all the lyrics for all the song writed in Gira’s carreer, and some paintings and photographs realized by Michael Gira during his 20s to his 60s and some sketch about the cover of his albums. Higly recomended for all the fans of his projects.
October 18, 2025
DNF and most likely will not read the rest unless I decide later that it’s worth it
very interesting insights but I don’t think it’s for me, if you’re a hardcore fan of swans I think you might enjoy it but I’m ngl a lot of the notes and entries in here by mr gira don’t have a profound meaning to me. a lot of what he writes is just gross to be gross (and artistically, I don’t think it works to do this all the time!) gira does have some interesting commentary about human behavior as it relates to bodily functions and sexual desire but like. idk. it’s cool but it just doesn’t do anything for me as someone who isn’t a hardcore fan. i just don’t understand michael gira like that and to be honest i don’t really want to after reading some of his book
very interesting insights but I don’t think it’s for me, if you’re a hardcore fan of swans I think you might enjoy it but I’m ngl a lot of the notes and entries in here by mr gira don’t have a profound meaning to me. a lot of what he writes is just gross to be gross (and artistically, I don’t think it works to do this all the time!) gira does have some interesting commentary about human behavior as it relates to bodily functions and sexual desire but like. idk. it’s cool but it just doesn’t do anything for me as someone who isn’t a hardcore fan. i just don’t understand michael gira like that and to be honest i don’t really want to after reading some of his book
August 15, 2022
kinda disappointing for me: 400 pages in not a very creative layout (is that font really Arial?), paper print quality like it came from my ink jet home printer, was hoping to see more art, photos etc (those 20+ pages at the end of the book containing reproductions of graphic material - even if on glossy paper - I find rather disappointing in size, quality, quantity) … $ 75 ??? now let’s see how inspiring MGs journal entries are … 😊
December 27, 2024
engaged w/ here: https://5cense.com/24/1196.htm
August 5, 2025
Dystopian. Dark. Sexually Charged. Deviantly Erotic. Sensual. Fetid. Disgusting. Violent. Fleshy. Gross.
This one is definitely not something I’d ever recommend to anybody who is not a die-hard SWANS fan; in fact, I wouldn’t recommend this to the vast majority of people at all.
But even with that fact kept in mind, it was still morbidly intriguing and borderline invasive/private to take a closer look into the mind of SWANS founder M.Gira's head-space, and his overall creative writing process — having made a timeline of all his years of writing, creating his art, venting about day to day situations, and even his peculiar prose, over several decades; even if my face scrunched up with disgust and confusion a bunch, at some points… but then again, a diary never is a purely „good“ and „pure“ place for the mind to spill itself out on.
A very highly interesting read, and completely the money's worth.
This one is definitely not something I’d ever recommend to anybody who is not a die-hard SWANS fan; in fact, I wouldn’t recommend this to the vast majority of people at all.
But even with that fact kept in mind, it was still morbidly intriguing and borderline invasive/private to take a closer look into the mind of SWANS founder M.Gira's head-space, and his overall creative writing process — having made a timeline of all his years of writing, creating his art, venting about day to day situations, and even his peculiar prose, over several decades; even if my face scrunched up with disgust and confusion a bunch, at some points… but then again, a diary never is a purely „good“ and „pure“ place for the mind to spill itself out on.
A very highly interesting read, and completely the money's worth.
April 13, 2025
7.5
Read along with the albums (which explains the time this read took with slow progress, as those who know about their album lengths know)
Loved going along with Gira through his monologues and discography. Occasionally in the earlier moments it got a bit “gross to be gross” hindering my rating down a bit (also some slightly perverse moments I hate). Really like his story “The Caregiver” a lot though.
At its best recalling McCarthy and at its worst nearly perverse slop (Gira’s art and music is still great either way)
Read along with the albums (which explains the time this read took with slow progress, as those who know about their album lengths know)
Loved going along with Gira through his monologues and discography. Occasionally in the earlier moments it got a bit “gross to be gross” hindering my rating down a bit (also some slightly perverse moments I hate). Really like his story “The Caregiver” a lot though.
At its best recalling McCarthy and at its worst nearly perverse slop (Gira’s art and music is still great either way)
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews