Pete Swanson

Pete Swanson formed one half of Yellow Swans, the longstanding harsh noise unit based in Portland, Oregon. Within that partnership he supplied sludgy pulsing beats alongside staticky tape manipulation, setting these elements against the feedback-laden guitar onslaught delivered by his collaborator Gabriel Saloman. From 2001 until the pair parted ways in 2008, Yellow Swans inhabited a violent landscape of slowed-down screaming dissonance. Across those seven years the group performed, recorded, and issued material without pause, a period during which Swanson appeared on dozens of the band’s releases while also issuing a handful of limited CD-Rs under his own name or the aliases P Swans and Badgerlore. After the group dissolved, he moved to New York City to resume his studies and simultaneously turned greater attention to solo work and live appearances. In 2012 he issued Man with Potential through Type Records, presenting a swirling mesh of distorted club beats interlaced with chattering blips of hypnotic electronic noise and garbled tape screeches.