Swans + Angel Olsen

Formed circa 1982, gone by 1997 and revived in 2010, NYC art-noise behemoths Swans defied reason in 2012 as they attracted their largest audiences yet with a sprawling triple LP (The Seer), unrelenting two-hour gigs and a lack of regard for both commercial relevance and bankable nostalgia. The band’s latest 121-minute colossus, To Be Kind, comes across as an ecstatic exercise in the bleakest, stormiest psychedelia imaginable. Opening their shows at the El Rey and the Observatory is Angel Olsen, an acrobatic-voiced Chicago indie-folkie whom you might have heard singing alongside Will Oldham, supporting an elegant new LP, Burn Your Fire for No Witness.