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Other People
M. Gira's Angels of Light and Akron/Family.()
Seattle Weekly | by Rod Smithshow previewLittle did Akron/Family know what lay ahead when they started sending Michael Gira demos. "If a record was anywhere in our minds, it was way in back," multi-instrumentalist Miles Seaton claims by phone from his home in Brooklyn. "Essentially, we were just looking for feedback from someone we respected. We were so immersed in what we were doing that we had absolutely no distance from our work. We needed someone to tell us that there was, in fact, sound on the discs we were making—that we weren't just hallucinating the whole thing." Less than three years after that first fateful trip to the post office, the semi-acoustic psychonauts are up to the hair on their chinny-chin-chins in Gira. Not content with co-producing a self-titled debut for his Young God label, he drafted them into Angels of Light, his main creative squeeze since the 1997 breakup of convulsive beauty-mongers Swans. Akron/Family are pulling double duty on a five-week string of live dates—opening as themselves, then returning to the stage as their enabler's kindred spirits. "Michael keeps saying that we haven't suffered enough yet," says Seaton, who moved to New York from Seattle a few years......
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Akron/Family
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PVHF, Radio Centraal, Antwerp | by Gerald Van Waesnewsletter/playlistAkron / Family is Seth Olinsky (guitars, vocals, banjo, melodica, organ, accordion, bric-a-brac, fruity computer twiddling), Miles Seaton (bass, vocals, melodica, piano, bric-a-brac, orchestral computer sentiments), Dana Janssen (drums and percussion, vocals, piano, glockenspiel, bric-a-brac), Ryan Vanderhoof (guitars, vocals, bric-a-brac) with a couple more artists : Ed Sortman, Nate Wooley, Jeremy Turner, Stephanie Jon Park, Nmperign, John-Paul Norpoth, on additional instruments (trumpet, cello, violin, sax, electronics, double bass) with Michael Gira (ex-Swans) who was very involved in the production process. Within a song structure I've hardly heard so much attention given to the arrangements. They show a whole world of electronic, acoustic and mixed sounds interwoven, like a natural environment (like the drawings, like a surrounding of leafs, fruit, snakes), with the acoustic and (slightly American) electric guitar arrangements and song expressions (with some vocal arrangements too). The kind of perfection and warm sphere reminded me of the latest Sufjans Stevens album. There are arrangements from bone to skin which fit well together, and which are constantly clever and renewing. The songs build up well from inside but together show their own story-like evolution too, like a book, with slightly different expressions......
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ANGELS OF LIGHT "The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People' "
AKRON/FAMILY "Akron/Family"()
Washington Post | by Mark Jenkinsshow previewIf the Michael Gira whose Swans were the most brutal of '80s New York noise bands could somehow meet the one who now records as the Angels of Light, would they even recognize each other? Well, the 2005 Gira still has that same baritone, although these days it's recorded to sound more natural. And today's model continues to sing about pain and death, albeit now in a style that owes more to bluegrass laments and British folk ballads -- as well as Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave -- than to his death-disco past. One of the strongest links is the two bands' sense of rhythm: The Angels don't slam the way Swans did, yet their music is not exactly fluid. "The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People' " opens with the almost-chirpy "Lena's Song," one of several tunes in which Siobhan Duffy's soprano sweetens Gira's gruff delivery. The singer is also accompanied by Akron/Family, a quartet that adds a touch of back-porch psychetronica, most notably on the frankly goofy "My Friend Thor." It's only a matter of time, however, before Gira introduces "Destroyer," whose "mouth is filled with flames," and "My Sister Said," in......
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ANGELS OF LIGHT "The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People' "
AKRON/FAMILY "Akron/Family"()
Washington Post | by Mark Jenkinsshow previewIf the Michael Gira whose Swans were the most brutal of '80s New York noise bands could somehow meet the one who now records as the Angels of Light, would they even recognize each other? Well, the 2005 Gira still has that same baritone, although these days it's recorded to sound more natural. And today's model continues to sing about pain and death, albeit now in a style that owes more to bluegrass laments and British folk ballads -- as well as Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave -- than to his death-disco past. One of the strongest links is the two bands' sense of rhythm: The Angels don't slam the way Swans did, yet their music is not exactly fluid. "The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People' " opens with the almost-chirpy "Lena's Song," one of several tunes in which Siobhan Duffy's soprano sweetens Gira's gruff delivery. The singer is also accompanied by Akron/Family, a quartet that adds a touch of back-porch psychetronica, most notably on the frankly goofy "My Friend Thor." It's only a matter of time, however, before Gira introduces "Destroyer," whose "mouth is filled with flames," and "My Sister Said," in......
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ANGELS OF LIGHT "The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People' "
AKRON/FAMILY "Akron/Family"()
Washington Post | by Mark Jenkinsshow previewIf the Michael Gira whose Swans were the most brutal of '80s New York noise bands could somehow meet the one who now records as the Angels of Light, would they even recognize each other? Well, the 2005 Gira still has that same baritone, although these days it's recorded to sound more natural. And today's model continues to sing about pain and death, albeit now in a style that owes more to bluegrass laments and British folk ballads -- as well as Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave -- than to his death-disco past. One of the strongest links is the two bands' sense of rhythm: The Angels don't slam the way Swans did, yet their music is not exactly fluid. "The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People' " opens with the almost-chirpy "Lena's Song," one of several tunes in which Siobhan Duffy's soprano sweetens Gira's gruff delivery. The singer is also accompanied by Akron/Family, a quartet that adds a touch of back-porch psychetronica, most notably on the frankly goofy "My Friend Thor." It's only a matter of time, however, before Gira introduces "Destroyer," whose "mouth is filled with flames," and "My Sister Said," in......