PRESS
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Love Is Simple | Review/Interview
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Eric Dawson | Knoxville Voice We’re really turned off by the veil of coolAkron/Family drummer, vocalist and lord-knows-what-else Dana Janssen is in Williamsburg, Penn., having fled Brooklyn temporarily to hang out and rehearse with fellow band members who have relocated to rural Pennsylvania in order to escape escalating rent and the general crunch of the city. “It’s a quality of life thing,” Janssen explains. “If you don’t have money in New York… ” he trails off, sentiment understood. “Here it’s relaxing and productive, real mellow.” The musicians have gathered here to rehearse before embarking on an upcoming tour to promote their new album, Love is Simple. The album was recorded by Gone/Rollins Band bassist and Ween producer Andrew Weiss, a move that may at first seem a bit counter-intuitive but Janssen says is perfectly in tune with the band’s sensibility. “Those Ween records are fun, kind of our vibe. We like having fun, and this was an opportunity to capture what we’re actually like. It’s a different side of us than our earlier records might have shown.” The record features Akron/Family friends such as Baltimore’s crazed, all-girl singing group the Lexie Mountain Boys, helping to “deliver the vibe, the cosmic truth,”......
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Love Is Simple | Review
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Rob O’Connor | Orlando Weekly If you don’t give it a real chance, it’s not going to happenAkron/Family bassist Miles Seaton is settling into life in Williamsport, Penn. He’s not there for front-row seats to the Little League World Series but because two of his bandmates, guitarist Seth Olinsky and drummer Dana Janssen, have returned here, as the financial realities of living in the Big Apple meant less time to spend working on Akron/Family. “There’s a certain element of luck and intention,” says Seaton of artistic survival in Manhattan. “New York, in general, is set up to be a meat grinder. We got what New York could offer and we were tied to it as a place, but as we’ve been on tour, it’s become another stop. We’ve never ‘conquered’ New York. We’ve all given up things to do this. If you don’t give it a real chance, it’s not going to happen.” Musically, A/F abide by the laws of improvisation, with an approach that is fluid and permeable, able to be molded into a new shape without losing its singular core. “We try to keep the sound open,” says Seaton. “So the end product can be similar but we don’t have......
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Love is Simple | Review
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Matthew Lurie | Time Out Chicago no whim remains unexploredThere are certain things ’60s psychedelia trademarked that are too naive ever to make an unironic comeback—among them free love, sunrises and portals. The youthful idealism that seems to cling to every note from the Brooklyn band Akron/Family falls into that group—but the enigmatic quartet also recognizes that just as that decade left us cynical and jaded, it’s also the era most prime for reinvention. Akron/Family’s fourth album in a furious two-year existence keeps the group’s rickety and inexhaustible spirit roaring ahead. Its touchstones, from the Grateful Dead to Neil Young to Fairport Convention, could easily veer into ostentatious eclecticism, but since Akron/Family doesn’t boast a particularly charismatic singer, the musicians all sing—and play—without pretension. In the group’s songs, no whim remains unexplored, no harmony stays undoubled and no lyric is unrepeated. Drum circles lead into harmonic-minor field hollers while campfire sing-alongs get stepped on by goofy Silver Apples-esque synthesizers. The frequent call-and-responses between Akron/Family and a bellowing, amateur, mixed-gender choir adds to the raucous all-my-friends-are-here vibe. There’s so many colors without the dirty windows,” goes the hook on one of Love’shighlights, a typical schizophrenic try-anything affair. It begins in a bare Gregorian chant......
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Interview with Miles Seaton of Akron/Family
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Steve Forstneger | IllinoisEnterainer.com IGN Music: Do you have any pet peeves? Miles Seaton: A dirty kitchen. In just five short years Brooklyn based Akron/Family-- Miles Seaton, Seth Olinksy, Dana Janssen and Ryan Vanderhoof—have risen to become one of the most prominent and prolific indie rock bands of the day. The roots of Akron/Family were planted by Seaton and Olinksy, who initially met during their shared graveyard shift at a Manhattan coffee shop. After tinkering around with bedroom recordings they enlisted the services of Janssen, whom Olinksy had known growing up. As a power trio they moved from the bedroom to the club scene, honing their unique and unpredictable live show in the process. Vanderhoof joined the band after serving as their opening act at what was their fourth ever public gig. So, by 2003 what had started as a tandem project had morphed into a full-blown quartet. Splitting their time between food service gigs and bedroom recording sessions and low-rent studio stints, the band culled together two home studio efforts and promptly sent them off to Young God Records. After the label's president, and musician in his own right, Michael Gira finally saw the band live he officially signed......
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Love Is Simple | Review
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Chris Parker | Detroit Metro Times Brooklyn psych-folk quartet Akron/Family just wanna have fun,They can't help it if sometimes it seems like the inmates are running the asylum when they play. After all, they get bored easily. "We tend to bring people onstage whenever we can," says bassist Miles Seaton, explaining the band's outrageous live antics. "We ended up going into the crowd and that was really fun for a while. We'd invite people onstage who don't know how to play instruments. Or we'll find the drunkest guy in the audience and hand them a recorder." The odd, colorful crew came together five years ago, and began peppering Michael Gira (Swans, Angels of Light) with almost monthly demo submissions until several months in, he rescued them from the slush pile, signing them to his label, Young God Records. The entire band cohabitated for several years in a hardly-renovated warehouse ensconced in a dangerous part of town, with loft beds, no walls — conditions Seaton describes as "unlivable." But this fetid, underinsulated hole proved a crucial hothouse for ideas as they recorded and collaborated on all manner of tracks. Those became 2005's self-titled debut and the follow-up split CD with Angels of Light......