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Akron/Family | Review
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outsideleft.com alex v. cookFAMILY MAGICKTiny insects and crustaceans blow around with occasional sharp winds only to bake in the warm and giving sun. A couple years ago, my wife bought me what has become my favorite book ever, Alchemy & Mysticism: The Hermetic Museum by Alexander Roob. It¹s a dazzling compendium of alchemy etchings and mystical illuminated scrolls from the 1400¹s and on, with equally incomprehensible explanatory text. Its like Finnegan¹s Wake, except with pictures, it makes my head spin every time I thumb through it. Around the time I got that, I also broke down and bought the much heralded Smithsonian Anthology of American Folk Music, the old record set that convinced everyone from Bob Dylan on up that thar¹s weirdness up in them thar hills. Its compiler, Harry Smith, was an ardent adherent to alchemy and particularly its hallucinatory imagery, and so the liner text and package is festooned to look like the magical document it is. Fast forward 50 years or so, when it has once again influenced a new tide of folkies, not with just the idylls of Dock Boggs and the Charley Patton, but with it¹s symbols and talismans of which it is liberally festooned.......
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Akron/Family | Review
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outsideleft.com alex v. cookFAMILY MAGICKTiny insects and crustaceans blow around with occasional sharp winds only to bake in the warm and giving sun. A couple years ago, my wife bought me what has become my favorite book ever, Alchemy & Mysticism: The Hermetic Museum by Alexander Roob. It¹s a dazzling compendium of alchemy etchings and mystical illuminated scrolls from the 1400¹s and on, with equally incomprehensible explanatory text. Its like Finnegan¹s Wake, except with pictures, it makes my head spin every time I thumb through it. Around the time I got that, I also broke down and bought the much heralded Smithsonian Anthology of American Folk Music, the old record set that convinced everyone from Bob Dylan on up that thar¹s weirdness up in them thar hills. Its compiler, Harry Smith, was an ardent adherent to alchemy and particularly its hallucinatory imagery, and so the liner text and package is festooned to look like the magical document it is. Fast forward 50 years or so, when it has once again influenced a new tide of folkies, not with just the idylls of Dock Boggs and the Charley Patton, but with it¹s symbols and talismans of which it is liberally festooned.......
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ANGELS OF LIGHT - Angels of Light Sing Other People
AKRON / FAMILY - Akron / Family()
gAZ-ETA.com | by Tom Sekowskidual reviewThese two projects showcase the gentler, but at the same time, an equally dark vision of the world of Michael Gira. Though he is personally only involved in Angels of Light, Akron/Family is a group he takes individual responsibility for, having signed them to his label, Young God Records. Following the disbandment of Swans in the late 90's, Michael Gira decided to hone in on his song-writing skills even more so than before. The sound became less harsh, overtly acoustic and ultimately one filled with beauty. This is beauty in its real form: unashamed, direct and certainly without a hint of sarcasm. The subject matter varies, between the pain of life, the always misunderstood subject of love, depression and of course Michael Jackson ["Michael's White Hands" is apparently "inspired by the magical spectacle that is Michael Jackson."] Oddly enough, "Michael's White Hands" is the most Swan-like and directly brutal song on the record, where for nearly half of its length, Michael is found screaming in agony. This is a cathartic experience of sorts, I suppose. Otherwise, the record is filled with acoustic guitars, gentle underlying bass lines and lots of floating choruses. Michael sounds just......
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ANGELS OF LIGHT - Angels of Light Sing Other People
AKRON / FAMILY - Akron / Family()
GAZ-ETA.com | by Tom Sekowskidual reviewThese two projects showcase the gentler, but at the same time, an equally dark vision of the world of Michael Gira. Though he is personally only involved in Angels of Light, Akron/Family is a group he takes individual responsibility for, having signed them to his label, Young God Records. Following the disbandment of Swans in the late 90's, Michael Gira decided to hone in on his song-writing skills even more so than before. The sound became less harsh, overtly acoustic and ultimately one filled with beauty. This is beauty in its real form: unashamed, direct and certainly without a hint of sarcasm. The subject matter varies, between the pain of life, the always misunderstood subject of love, depression and of course Michael Jackson ["Michael's White Hands" is apparently "inspired by the magical spectacle that is Michael Jackson."] Oddly enough, "Michael's White Hands" is the most Swan-like and directly brutal song on the record, where for nearly half of its length, Michael is found screaming in agony. This is a cathartic experience of sorts, I suppose. Otherwise, the record is filled with acoustic guitars, gentle underlying bass lines and lots of floating choruses. Michael sounds just......
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AKRON/FAMILY:
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EVILSPONGE.ORGa mostly profound and surprisingly cinematic tripFirst glance at the cover of Akron/Family's debut album (a paganesque satyr head that appears to be made of things resembling vegetables) and the accompanying press release (something about the four members locking themselves away and growing ZZ Top beards and probably smelling like aforementioned Satyr on cover), and you‚d be forgiven if you expected a weird, self indulgent ride. You‚d be wrong. There's weird to be had, but it's far from the nutty kind of obfuscations that hide a serious muse lack. Instead, it's a mostly profound and surprisingly cinematic trip. The album was released on M. Gira's Young Gods Records. Not sure what makes Gira a magnet for these sorts of things, but he's developing a great track record for exposing the creative underbelly of the American psyche, in particular the place where folk, Americana, and outer space meet. This release fits on the roster, comfortably nudged between the fractured savant stylings of Devendra Barnhart and Gira's own brand of acoustic warp, Angels of Light. The songs themselves stray between the experimental and the generally conventional. This makes sense in a way. The whole album was assembled from re-recordings from a bunch......