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Akron/Family | Review
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www.scenepointblank.com | ShaneThe song is enough to make you break down and crySept 05Akron/FamilyAkron/Family (Young God, 2005) Michael Gira is a genius. Swans and Angels of Light will undoubtedly be remembered as great bands years from now. Playing music is not all Gira is good at though. Discovering talent is another of Gira's gifts and if he keeps up with his track record, it might even become more renowned than his songwriting abilities. You may know the name Devendra Banhart by chance. He only released two critically acclaimed albums last year and has single handedly revived a folk revolution. Yeah, Gira discovered him. A name you might not be so familiar with is Akron/Family, Gira's latest discovery. Akron/Family is four guys who convened in New York City in 2002 to make music together. They locked themselves in an apartment for years, honing their skills and writing an incredible number of songs. Enough to release a 3-CD set for their debut. After all was said and done though, only one CD was served as their debut and it is undoubtedly one of the best of the year.'Before and Again' is the first song on the record and will start you off right......
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Akron/Family | Review
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www.scenepointblank.com | Shanetop 30 albums 2005 Jan 06#20 Akron Family - Akron Family(Young God)This is something that absolutely cannot be skipped over. As a matter of act, it's the best album to be released this year and is Gira's best discovery yet. Yes, it honestly blows Devendra Banhart right out of the water. Akron/Family has found a balance between being complicated while being simple that any band would kill to have. Months from now you'll find little things you never noticed before popping up. If any of the material they recorded while recording this disc is just as good, expect this to bea band that is in everyone's mouths for years....
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Mi and L'au | Review
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tinymixtapes.com/ | jay Best songs of '05 "A Word in Your Belly" (Mi and L'au) Even among an album as subtle as this, there's a pronounced feeling here that the waters are parting for a moment, that time is slowing even more, that we're all being asked to take a step back and watch this song unfold. It seizes you unexpectedly, when that soft bed of low strings stretches itself before you, and you feel the muscles behind your ears tense up, and you catch the faint sounds of shirt sleeves, the soles of feet, the dust in the air, and the arching of brows in awe of such grace. Then there's L'au's voice, placid and sincere, his tongue curling around the word "calm," repeating those two enigmatic lines. And later, that one violin, sailing over everything on a single, sustained note. After four minutes, the song never really ends, but only sinks with a kind of quiet resignation....
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Mi and L'au | Live Review
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Philadelphia Weekly | J.K.be ready for magicTues., Jan. 17 www.worldcafelive.comMichael Gira's Young God label has been on a roll lately, unearthing Devendra Banhart in 2002, finding the sublime Akron/Family a couple years later and now introducing this French/Finnish songwriting duo, a married couple who construct hushed, minimal songs out of the barest elements of guitar, strings and voice. There's silence embedded in each of the 14 songs on Mi and L'au's debut album, a tranquility that reflects pure, unadulterated love. Be still, be ready for magic, and for god's sake turn off the cell phone before the show, because even breathing seems like disruption for music this diaphanous. ...
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Mi and L'au | Live Review
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www.nytimes.com/ |Laura Sinagrathe one whose singing hushed the club's chatterPublished: January 16, 2006When it comes to a musical persona, "modern-day Adam and Eve" isn't a bad choice. If any duo can pull it off, it's the quiescent Mi and L'au. As their lore has it, the former model Mira Romantschuk, who is Finnish, and the French soundtrack musician Laurent Leclère fell in love in Paris a few years back, then moved to a woodland cabin outside Helsinki, where for four years they lived simply, writing spare songs that do more with space and silence than with notes and words.Existing in the same universe as the neo-folker Devendra Banhart, whom Mr. Leclère befriended in the 1990's, they engage an idea of "North" in ways that connect them with the whispery Canadian singer Julie Doiron and even Sigur Ros of Iceland. But rather than Sigur Ros's grandiose snowy expanses, the landscape these two explore is the space between them, knowable yet unknowable in its dimensions.On any given evening, Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side is thronged with beautiful people. But weaving through the Christmas-lighted Cake Shop on Friday, the pale and waifish Mi and the dark, beatific L'au looked like particularly......