Corsica Studios, London, UK

Originally active from 2001-08, Yellow Swans have acquired mythic status among lovers of dirty transcendental drone. If some of tonight’s audience have seen them before, many would have been too young the first time around. To warm things up, aya’s twin DJ sets swing between menacing loops and glitchy screamo. Dhangsha’s dub, meanwhile, pertains to a militant political edge that’s summoned almost exclusively from a drum machine.

Yellow Swans Pete Swanson and Gabriel Saloman Mindel have been working on separate projects for the better part of two decades but recently reconvened to digitise their archive and play a sporadic string of shows. Mindel wears a cap with the legend “abuse of power comes as no surprise”. As is customary for Yellow Swans gigs, he introduces their set with a contextualising monologue on the tide of fascism in the US, the UK and “wherever there’s complacency”, as well as his recent lung cancer diagnosis, and reflects that their music is in service of struggles against oppression.

Commissioned by Groupe de Recherches Musicales, “Air Material” speaks to these themes of resistance and “what lives on beyond” them. It begins with two voices English and French, male and female reciting a poem in a language tape-style delivery. The speakers muse on breath, mortality and authoritarianism, their voices overlapping.

Repeated several times, the line “I saw a banner that says ‘Fuck ICE” is succeeded by instructions on how to avoid detainment. The text is followed by what sounds like a distorted bird chorus and mutating ocean waves but are possibly just phantoms. Synthetic bass creeps in like continents dividing and the room, which was until now very still, starts swaying.

Each of the duo controls a minimal set-up consisting of cassette players, mixers and effects pedals. Swanson also has a small modular rig and reel-to-reel machine that provide accents of meat and grit respectively. “Peace Eternity” is built around three chords that loop, modulate and sway. The sequence evolves gradually, picking up dusty artefacts along the way as it fixes into a steady rhythm. Mindel’s body convulses as he punches notes into his guitar. This movement is echoed in the duo’s shaking of cabled joysticks that add to the wall of fuzz. And yet melody lurks in the mirth, suggesting the track is about survival rather than ruin. Swelling like an anxiety attack, it’s all over before you can catch your breath.

Knowing this might be one of the last opportunities to hitch a ride onto their maelstrom of tape static and electric hiss makes the moment all the more urgent. Mindel concedes that it’s unlikely these pieces will be played live again. He has to sit down before leaving the stage but still talks to fans after the show. It’s almost exactly 20 years since Yellow Swans last played Corsica Studios. With the venue soon closing its doors, this gig feels like a swan song in more ways than one.

Ilia Rogatchevski
Originally published by The Wire, March 2026