The World of Skin

The World of Skin was a music project springing out of the American group Swans, which was a collaboration between the core Swans members Michael Gira and Jarboe.

Blood, Women, Roses (1987) was the project's first release and featured vocals entirely by Jarboe, who had previously mainly been performing backing vocals.

Many of the tracks on this album were covers of show tunes and other popular songs (for example "Cry Me a River" and "The Man I Love").

Many of the tracks still featured the monumental use of percussion that was common in earlier Swans work, but combined this with a greater use of melody ("Red Rose" is typical of this).

Blood, Women, Roses was followed in 1988 by Shame, Humility, Revenge, which featured vocals by Michael Gira (although Jarboe did perform some backing vocals).