PRESS
-
Akron/Family & Angels of Light | Review
()
Skyscraper Magazine | Michael Meadeperfectly informed, a cohesive psychedelic tour-de-force ANGELS OF LIGHT & AKRON/FAMILYAkron/Family & Angels of Light CD Earlier this year in the pages of this very magazine I gushed about the frenzied beauty of Akron/Family's debut recording. Following a tour with mentor Michael Gira's Angels of Light, the two bands quickly laid down the tracks for this split (Akron/Family providing back-up to Gira's songs). The Akron/Family cuts come first, and are not much departure from work on their debut. Inspired, conspired chaos punctuates folky acoustics amid closely-harmonized vocal antics on their seven tracks. "Moment" and "Dylan Pt. 2" are both mesmerizing and a study in the diverging natures of this band. I have been increasingly fond of the directions taken by The Angels of Light lately, and here they lay down five cuts, one of which is a quite nice take on Dylan's "I Pity the Poor Immigrant," Gira's reading spot-on. Gira also covers himself with Swans' "Mother/Father" (from The Great Annihilator), transforming a drum'n'bass Jarboe drone into a tribal chant,with able assistance from the Akron/Family boys. With fewer tracks, Angels of Light still deliver the best song here. "The Provider" is seven magnetic minutes of......
-
Mi and L'au | Review
()
Skyscraper magazine | Michael Meade hushed vocals, ringing keyboards, with an occasional modish tweakFeb/March 06MI AND L'AUMi and L'au CD Young GodFinespun as the gently sifting snow, Mi and L'au's debut recording deftly distills folk tradition to an absorbing modern austerity, an update, perhaps, on Kalevala rune songs. Michael Gira's latest acoustic find is far removed from Devendra Banhart's dewy-eyed field of fancy, although Banhart and L'au have played together. Mi and L'au's songs ache with intangible pains; they spring from an ancient racial memory of sorrow, while working at unloading that burden. These fourteen tracks step slowly, testing an uncertain path, but usually find the mark. They are economic constructs of acoustic guitar, hushed vocals, ringing keyboards, with an occasional modish tweak. 'Older' is a languid rumination, floating on Mi's voice and sighing strings. Other highlights include the exquisite 'A Word in Your Belly' (which marries L'au's breaking vocal to a violin hanging dreamlike in the ether) and the spare Low like crawl of 'How.' Recluses, L'au, an emigre from Paris, and Mi, the Finn model, the couple inhabit an isolated cabin where they hone their work in the Finnish countryside, harboring in Helsinki only during the harshness......
-
Akron/Family | Interview with Dana Janssen
()
straight.com | mike usingerAkron/Family learned that even though the Facial-Hair Club for Men doesn’t boast a 100-percent success rate, when a transplant works, it really works. Straight.comVancouver MusicMusic PreviewsMusic Previews ArchivesAkron/Family goes organic Publish Date: 2-Mar-2006 No one can accuse New York City’s Akron/Family of pandering to the masses.The Williamsburg quartet’s latest release, a split LP with Angels of Light, finds the best new band you’ve likely never heard of giving a clinic in genre-mashing. Akron/Family & Angels of Light kicks off on a melancholy note with “Awake”, a harmony-drenched wash of acid- casualty folk. From there, all hell breaks loose with breathtaking results. “Moment” starts out like Pavement in a white-noise turf war with the Bad Seeds and ends up landing somewhere between the Meat Puppets and Lynyrd Skynyrd. “Raising the Sparks” imagines the Velvet Underground doing gospel at the Church of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and “Future Myth” is the Polyphonic Spree wickedly stoned on Black Mountain. The only problem with such comparisons is that Akron/Family’s Dana Janssen doesn’t think they capture what his band is aiming for.“We don’t try to write along those lines,” says the drummer and singer, reached long-distance at home. “It’s not like we go, ‘Let’s try to make......
-
Mi and L'au | Review
()
www.erasingclouds.com/ | dave heaton it makes everything stand still and pulls you in closeFeb '06Mi and L'au, self-titled (Young God)"Fold your hands round me," goes the last line on Mi and L'au's self-titled debut album, just as you feel like the music is doing the same, enveloping you with something as simple as two hands. The duo's music is almost unbelievably stark ...that is, the believability is questionable because of how full the music is in feeling, the way it makes everything stand still and pulls you in close. Mi and L'au is a couple, a woman and a man who mostly sing and play guitar, with another instrument gently added here and there. They recorded their album in a cabin in Finland, and it sounds indeed like its own little world. There's something very out-of-time, out-of-place about the music; it doesn't feel like part of a "scene" or movement. Yet it conjures up very distinct feelings, and in that way feels very of the moment. The music is slow, almost cautiously so, and potent in its pace, its intimacy, its warmth, and the weird beauty of the voices and music. Songs like "Burns" and "Christmas Soul" are peaceful and solemn,......
-
Mi and L'au | Review
()
The Stranger | Kurt B. Reighley What Mi and L'au are selling is a thing of genuine beautyFeb 22/06Border RadioRoots & AmericanaFashion models are generally terrible musicians. Have you ever heard Naomi Campbell's 1994 album, Babywoman? Let's just say her "novel," Swan, is Pulitzer-worthy in comparison. Certainly, there are exceptions. Twiggy issued some groovy '60s singles, and Milla Jovovich's The Divine Comedy was better than average singer-songwriter fare. But overall, the best thing about records made by models is the sleeve art.Consequently, it comes as a surprise to learn that the singularly named Mi, one-half of recording duo Mi and L'au, used to earn her daily baguette by posing professionally. While working in Paris, the Finnish beauty met her future partner, a music-industry vet. (He is also a colleague of Devendra Banhart; the latter wrote "A Gentle Soul," on his Oh Me Oh My..., in homage to L'au.) Mi and L'au fell in love, and, deterred by the real-estate situation in the City of Lights, soon decamped to a cabin in the woods of Finland.Fortunately, the pair is coming out of isolation to play some U.S. dates‹including this Thursday, February 16, at the Sunset‹in support of their 2005 self-titled debut......