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Michael Gira
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Houston Chronicle | ANDREW DANSBYtook charge of his music and became an established, not establishment, businessmanFor such a simple music, punk rock had plenty of baggage regarding how music should be conceived, performed and sold. Its art rock successors lugged around even more opinions and snobbery. But Michael Gira chose to pack light. If Gira's name doesn't ring a bell, perhaps you weren't scared senseless by the Swans, his noise-rock ensemble that channeled punk energy into a droning, menacing, gothic nightmare of a sound in the '80s. The group released numerous über-dark albums and EPs between 1982 and 1996. Before the band collapsed, Gira established his own label, Young God Records. Young God is operational and successful today, and it affords Gira the opportunity to release music at a pace he finds comfortable — swift. He's also become something of a tastemaker, signing some startlingly original acts (particularly the ethereal-voiced Texan Devendra Banhart) to Young God. While the major labels continue pursuing flawed business models built around massive overhead and overt gambling, Giras is quite comfortable with his own bag: a moderate-risk, moderate-reward operation with music at its center. Skepticism that the guy who hatched album titles like Anonymous Bodies......
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Michael Gira
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Houston Chronicle | ANDREW DANSBYtook charge of his music and became an established, not establishment, businessmanFor such a simple music, punk rock had plenty of baggage regarding how music should be conceived, performed and sold. Its art rock successors lugged around even more opinions and snobbery. But Michael Gira chose to pack light. If Gira's name doesn't ring a bell, perhaps you weren't scared senseless by the Swans, his noise-rock ensemble that channeled punk energy into a droning, menacing, gothic nightmare of a sound in the '80s. The group released numerous über-dark albums and EPs between 1982 and 1996. Before the band collapsed, Gira established his own label, Young God Records. Young God is operational and successful today, and it affords Gira the opportunity to release music at a pace he finds comfortable — swift. He's also become something of a tastemaker, signing some startlingly original acts (particularly the ethereal-voiced Texan Devendra Banhart) to Young God. While the major labels continue pursuing flawed business models built around massive overhead and overt gambling, Giras is quite comfortable with his own bag: a moderate-risk, moderate-reward operation with music at its center. Skepticism that the guy who hatched album titles like Anonymous Bodies......
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Akron/Family
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Kevchino.com | by Sean Lambert6 OUT OF 10I placed a blossoming apple sprig that I cut from a tree in my sister’s backyard to a shelf above my computer where I sit typing this while listening to this CD, a gesture that gels with the earthly album art and overall sensitivity of Akron/Family’s sound. Sculpting surprising electronic and naturalistic soundscapes amidst delicately delivered vocals and tight instrumentation, this quartet offers more fodder for musical meditation than rock ‘n’ roll rallying. Not a party album or something to throw on the stereo with casual indifference, lest you miss the dueling harmonies and softly accentuated (sometimes confounding to define) tones, blips and sonic slurs thrown in as a kind of audio spice to a larger mix. With the inclusion of rhythmically played bric-a-brac and a bout of unrestrained caterwauling, Running Returning may still be the strongest single track on the album, providing more of a pop alertness and tempo structure than many of the other songs that too often fall prey to hushed meandering. On such tracks as Afford, Shoes and How Do I Know, the vocals ring true with distinctive phrasing and unforced timing. When they place the voice at the......
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Angels of Light Sing Other People
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tinymixtapes.com | filmore mescalito holmesOne indie-folk album, contents: 20 instruments, 10 musicians, 10 seconds of drumming, trace amounts of electric instruments, cricketsThere are certain traits and actions observable to any music fan regardless of personal taste that separate true artists from mere product producers. One of these is the embracement of change and the willingness to try new things seriously, like how Beck and Radiohead are constantly changing style and content. Lyricist, vocalist, guitarist, and Young God label owner Michael Gira has surely undergone some changes over the past couple of decades. The obvious change would naturally be the transition from leading the way in avant-garde fringe punk to this eclectic, largely acoustic folk effort. Turning his back on lengthy instrumental passages and cluttered crescendos, Gira sets anything electric to a minimum and essentially banned drums, effectively opening up the songs on Sing 'Other People.' "My Friend Thor" mixes instrumentation reminiscent of Four Tet with high register, bizarre vocal stylings Frank Zappa would have certainly appreciated. The lyrics to this and every track is strongly character-based. Over Gira and Akron/Family's varied but levelly mixed soundscape, the novelistic lyricism forges 'Other People' into a unique narrative form in an age of......
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Akron/Family | review
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foxydigitalis.com | Nick Henniesa refreshingly refined and considered effortWhenever a musical style really catches on with the public for the first time it always takes about six months for a huge crop of second generation imitators to spring up all over the country, turning a potentially valuable musical idea into a fad. The current “free folk†(for lack of a better term) movement is no different. So, it’s unfortunate that Akron/Family, a band that is musically and aesthetically independent from the genre, would release their debut amid a hazy cloud of bearded, barefoot singer-songwriters. Yes, there are many elements of Akron/Family’s music that could be construed as ‘free’ or ‘folk’, but the ingenuity present on this album places the focus firmly on the composition of songs rather than any extra-musical traits often associated with a genre as idiosyncratic as this one. Reportedly culled from endless home recorded demos, Akron/Family’s debut is a refreshingly refined and considered effort. No doubt the result of the band having lived together for a long period of time obsessively writing and recording music, this is an album full of gorgeous climaxes, unique arrangements, and a surprising number of unidentifiable sounds. They are true craftsman, ably......