PRESS
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Akron/Family
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SOMA/music issue | Mila ZuoOne of our short term goals is to become the greatest rock and roll band in the world...Although their name, appearance and humble manners are indicative of their rural upbringing, the four young men of Akron/Family migrated to New York City in 2002 in hopes of finding a thread of inspiration in the city's well-worn music scene. "One of our short term goals is to become the greatest rock and roll band in the world," Miles Seaton (sometimes vocalist and instrumentalist) half-jokes. Sequestering themselves in their tiny Brooklyn apartment, the foursome has been creating unique folk rock symphonies for the past few years. After making at least three albums worth of music and sending Michael Gira (of Young God Records) demos along the way, Gira was convinced he had to see the band live. Like many Akron/Family first-timers, he was won over and the rest is history. Bravely inching towards their goal, the four men of Akron/Family are working harder on their first tour than any band on the road, playing two sets a night, first as Akron/Family, then alongside their new mentor and label-mate Michael Gira as Angels of Light. Meeting up with Akron/Family and......
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Akron/Family
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Magnet Magazine | J. Edward Keyesthe band members are not mystics but experimentalists at heartAkron/Family is Psych/Folk, the first part of that description being like when you'd offer your sibling a lick of your ice cream cone, only to pull it away at the last second yelling "Psych!" Because the closer you get to these campfire songs, the more you realize it's fake-out. The group has trembling acoustics and the warbly, high pitched suffocating-miner vocals, but the structure is cockeyed and the cadence is off. Because they're young and have beards and live in Brooklyn, it's tempting to sew up the Family members in the same rucksack that contains Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. But listen close and it's clear the band members are not mystics but experimentalists at heart. Akron/Family was Michael Gira's backing band on the last Angels of Light record, and the two outfits share a fondness for obtuse, open-ended songs. The banjo that opens Running, Returning may be straight from an Alabama front porch, but it's set against convulsing electronic percussion and is kicked aside at the song's halfway point as the whole piece tumbles forward into lurching post-rock. The band executes these sorts of hairpin......
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The Angels of Light Sing: 'Other People'
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Kitty Magik | Adam GnadeA flourishing, organic, earthy acoustic symphony...Thirty acoustic guitars plucking away at once! Choir harmonies floating like haints over Michael Gira's (ex Swans) rusty, rustic swamp baritone! Glockenspiel that bursts and thunders and cascades like water through the busted sluiceway gates of a river dam! Casio over bass over banjo! Cello! Sax! Hawwmonica! Argh! Shit just tears me apart and pummels my guts like brass knuckles! A flourishing, organic, earthy acoustic symphony that has the palpable potency of Spring air, fragrant with nasturtiums and filled with buzzing bees! And then, like La Llorona or a mick banshee, Gira comes moaning outta the depths of fucking HELL singing "Come home to Purple Creek/come home to Purple Creek/come home to Purple Creek" and fuckin' shit, I'm there. We're all there. We are. Our arms are linked and we're armed tothe teeth and we are... weeping! Whew! Yes!...
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Michael Gira | Interview
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STATIC MAGAZINE (WNYU RADIO NY PUBLICATION) | Daniel Blumina career in music that has been as focused and uncompromising as Michael Gira’sIn the world of popular music, you can probably count the musicians who’ve had a career in music that has been as focused and uncompromising as Michael Gira’s on your twenty digits. From his work with Swans, who exploded onto the scene with their frightening self-titled debut EP in 1982 to his current more pastoral work in Angels of Light, his music has always been a favorite of The New Afternoon Show. We have often had the pleasure of having Michael in as a guest on the show over the past twenty years, and it was a no-brainer to invite him to participate in the first Static of the new millenium. Originally, the idea was to look back at the history of Swans, the intensity of their live shows as well as the shockingly brutal directness of their earliest recordings. However, space limitations being what they are, we’ll leave that for a few years and perhaps revisit Swans history for their 25th anniversary. Since Swans called it a day w/ the release of their final record in 1998, Michael......
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Angels of Light | Interview
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STATIC MAGAZINE (WNYU RADIO NY PUBLICATION) | Daniel Blumina career in music that has been as focused and uncompromising as Michael Gira’sIn the world of popular music, you can probably count the musicians who’ve had a career in music that has been as focused and uncompromising as Michael Gira’s on your twenty digits. From his work with Swans, who exploded onto the scene with their frightening self-titled debut EP in 1982 to his current more pastoral work in Angels of Light, his music has always been a favorite of The New Afternoon Show. We have often had the pleasure of having Michael in as a guest on the show over the past twenty years, and it was a no-brainer to invite him to participate in the first Static of the new millenium. Originally, the idea was to look back at the history of Swans, the intensity of their live shows as well as the shockingly brutal directness of their earliest recordings. However, space limitations being what they are, we’ll leave that for a few years and perhaps revisit Swans history for their 25th anniversary. Since Swans called it a day w/ the release of their final record in 1998, Michael......