Gloria De Oliveira - The Lying Swans

Darkness can be revealing. Joy feels different after grief, sharper and clearer. Though allowing the light in again after desolation can be incredibly challenging, especially when the wounds of the past still haunt the present. "The Lying Swans", Gloria de Oliveira’s third full length, explores this in depth, like a work of Gothic literary fiction set in motion by the image of a woman fleeing a haunted house.

Produced by Randall Dunn (Anna von Hausswolff, Sunn O))), Marissa Nadler) and recorded between Iceland, New York and Berlin, the result is an oneiric world where enchantment and danger coexist.

“I numb my hurt one last time”, sings de Oliveira in the first single "Fading Faces", as a farewell to darker times. “The Lying Swans” thus unravels as a deeply personal story of trauma and its aftermath, referencing the Greek myth of Leda, wherein Zeus tries to charm a Spartan princess by disguising himself as a swan. As with all myths, this one can be looked at in different ways, as a tale of magical seduction, or an account of a of brutal violation. Leda’s consent has remained a topic of debate for centuries.