PRESS
-
Angels of Light | Review
()
indieworkshop.com | Grant Capes One thing about Gira’s work, especially on the Angels of Light material, is that I can never seem to pick a favorite song. 04-13-2005 No artist is as indie as Michael Gira. He has consistently done what he saw fit, from the bludgeoning amplified ballet of the Swans to the lush and exotic instrumentation of the World of Skin. His work became even more amazing and bounteous once he built his own record label, eschewing forever the fetters of the record industry. His solo releases, mostly limited edition CD-R’s, signed by him, contained some of the seeds for this, easily the most coherent of the Angels of Light recordings. If you can’t get those recordings, then please, jump on this one ASAP. This coherency is surprising, in that every song was intended by Gira to be totally separate and autonomous. What links them together, aside from the lack of drums throughout, is Gira’s consistently vision-invoking voice and the Akron/Family’s rather astounding turn as a choral back-up group for Gira (which is a little sad, considering the stupendous band he had assembled for the Everything is Good Here / Please Come Home record, but things never last......
-
Akron/Family | Review
()
Brainwashed.com | Jim Siegel they effortlessly combine threads of traditional and modern music into a new wholeMarch 20, 2005 Proficiency at editing is just as prominent on the list of this quartet's skills as is their songwriting ability. Rather than presenting results along the way since recording commenced in 2002, Akron/Family have waited and produced a work that lends the project the air of appearing fully formed from out of nowhere. Although rooted in traditional songwriting, the album has many nuances that elevate it above the recent deluge of "new folk/americana." "I'll Be On The Water" appears at first to be a simple, lovely ditty sung by one man with an acoustic guitar to his significant other. As the song progresses it reveals layers of field recordings and subtle instrumental accompaniment which place it in a landscape that enhances the sentiment of the lyric. The first verse of "Suchness" sounds like a dusty recording of someone singing on his front porch. Alien percussion, vocal harmonies, swirling electronics and, ultimately, a full electric band, pop up from underneath the floorboards at the 3 minute song's halfway point to take it into a realm that is at once surprising and natural. Akron/Family......
-
Angels of Light/Michael Gira | Interview
()
SuicideGirls.com | Daniel Robert EpsteinAug. 23/05 Michael Gira is best known as one half of The Swans along with Jarboe. Now he is running his label, Young God Records, which is shepherding a number of upcoming acts. Gira’s latest album is The Angels of Light Sing Other People. Get The Angels of Light Sing Other People Daniel Robert Epstein: How long have you been working on the new album? Michael Gira: About a month or something. It just came out in April. DRE: How’s it doing? MG: Very well. This band that played on the album, Akron/Family, are doing really well. We just did a tour together and they opened first as themselves and then they played as my backing band. DRE: How was that? MG: It was amazing. I don’t want to be crass music biz person, but I think they’re our next Devendra Banhart. They’re getting a lot of great response. DRE: Where do you find them? MG: In their case it was pretty banal. They just sent me a series of demos but I was so incredibly busy for the last two years with Devendra that I didn’t really listen to the stuff on my desk. When......
-
Akron/Family | Review
()
Toronto Eye Weekly | Jason Anderson an Akron/Family show is an uncommonly joyful thing8/25/05 MEET... Akron/Family WHO ARE THEY? Four very genial, mostly bearded young men from Pennsylvania, California and upstate New York who converged on a Brooklyn apartment three years ago to revisit the whole of American music in one fell swoop. Released in March on Young God Records, Akron/Family's self-titled debut is one of the most magical recordings to emerge from the new psych-folk underground, the band's rustic yet experimental sound somehow encompassing a Band-like earthy charm, Beefheartian lurching and Beatles-esque sweetness. A split album with Angels of Light is out in October. AREN'T THEY LABELMATES WITH THAT DEVENDRA BANHART DUDE? Yup. Like Banhart, Akron/Family were discovered and produced by Young God's Michael Gira. Akron/Family also served as the backing band in Gira's Angels of Light project during a spring tour that included an ecstatic set at the Music Gallery. Gira thinks they're the best band he's ever worked with (and that includes Swans). Speaking over the phone from his parents' place in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, guitarist/singer Seth Olinsky says every group should have a patron like Gira. "To a certain extent, he is a businessman and I don't......
-
Angels of Light/Michael Gira | Interview
()
Altercation Magazine | Justin HabersaatOn this current record, I thought I'd give something back to some of the people I love and admire, so I wrote tributes to them.July 2005 While few artists would be so brash as to naysay a previous band that brought them to prominence within the public consciousness, fewer yet have been as haunted by their artistic past as Michael Gira. With the genius of Eighties underground stalwarts Swans, which he fronted and eventually came to personify, well in his rearview mirror, Gira has forged ahead down an ambitious creative path. Still, one would be hard-pressed to come across a Gira feature that didn't at least hint at the impressive output of his prior band; the body of work is, after all, quite stunning. Heading his own imprint Young God Records (home to such rising indie cult phenomenon’s as Devendra Banhart and Akron/Family), and maintaining an admirable release schedule of his own recordings (both solo and with his new project Angels of Light), Gira has carved out an unmistakable niche through an uncompromising artistic vision and work ethic. With a new, stripped, acoustic-laden Angels of Light album to his credit (Other People) and an international tour......