PRESS
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AKRON/FAMILY | Review
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dosomethingpretty.com | Jonathan FalconeAn album of unmatched beauty.4/5 Akron/Family are a four-piece, the singer sings like an angel, and they waltz through country songs that leaving you marvelling at their beauty. These aren¹t normal folk songs though. These folk songs are meshed with electronic beeps, clatters and whirls. Part Grateful Dead in their more pastoral hymnals and part Silver Apples in their non-stop aluminium-noise assault, it makes for deeply textured songs that always look upwards, aspiring to the skies. Sharing a use of sampled mutters and sighs-made-beats as utilised by fellow folk eccentrics Hood, an autumnal air haunts the record. ŒRunning, Returning¹ is the Smashing Pumpkins playing bluegrass, explosive power is contained in tight banjo lines and train-track drums. Radiohead couldn¹t even dream of touching the sincerity of the pleas on display here. ŒShoes¹ is hope given music  aspirations of the impossible that somehow feel attainable - a soft crescendo grows in volume and culminates in a wall of glorious country harmonies. An album of unmatched beauty....
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Angels of Light Sing Other People
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Copper Press | Christian Careya dozen delicate chamber pop songsThe cover photos for The Angels of Light Sing "Other People" are deliberately blurry, to better obscure the identities of some of the subjects of songs on the album. However, there is nothing unfocused about the music on this CD. The group's leader and principal songwriter, Michael Gira (former steward of the art-rock band Swans), deploys his expressive bass voice in a dozen delicate chamber pop songs. Sometimes his mellifluous delivery glides from pitch to pitch and to places "in the cracks between the keys", evoking a dash of Lou Reed. But these moments of "speech song" are more than balanced here by a series of memorable sung choruses. He is joined by Akron/Family, who serve as collaborators rather than merely back-up musicians, crafting a glimmering sound world that borrows liberally from the folk-rock tradition. Strummed acoustic guitars, mandolins, banjos, a halo of synthesizer pads, and occasional touches of reeds and percussion make for an intriguing combination of directness and intricacy. While the songs on Other People are ostensibly about specific people (and Swan/Gira fans will doubtless be able to match several songs to their respective subjects), most identifying details have......
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The Angels of Light Sing Other People | Review
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dosomethingpretty.com | Jonathan FalconeThis release takes folk music and country in a new, more hardened, direction5/5 Michael Gira used to be in Swans, they were one of the most devastatingly powerful bands ever. They played music so loud it was barely listen able and so slow its changes were like ice caps shunting, hardly noticeable, but backed with unrivalled force. He now has his own Young God label, and its output is somewhat different to those accustomed to Swans. Yet it is no less glorious, for ŒOther People¹ is the slow dirge regrets of Johnny Cash backed by chiming clocks and welling country choirs. ³I know somewhere there¹s a God¹ Giras croons deeply in ŒDestroyer¹, and it strikes like thunder in the soul: a preacher venting his frustration on the lord, tired of his work receiving no tangible rewards. ŒOther People¹ masterfully contrasts the lulling nature of folk music and its soft contemplations with a voice of grit and orchestral arrangements that out-speed GSYBE at their most frantic and infected. This release takes folk music and country in a new, more hardened, direction. The Soul of Swans in a sea of fiddles and banjos, can it get more blissful?...
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AKRON/FAMILY | Review
()
dosomethingpretty.com | Jonathan FalconeAn album of unmatched beauty.4/5 Akron/Family are a four-piece, the singer sings like an angel, and they waltz through country songs that leaving you marvelling at their beauty. These aren¹t normal folk songs though. These folk songs are meshed with electronic beeps, clatters and whirls. Part Grateful Dead in their more pastoral hymnals and part Silver Apples in their non-stop aluminium-noise assault, it makes for deeply textured songs that always look upwards, aspiring to the skies. Sharing a use of sampled mutters and sighs-made-beats as utilised by fellow folk eccentrics Hood, an autumnal air haunts the record. ŒRunning, Returning¹ is the Smashing Pumpkins playing bluegrass, explosive power is contained in tight banjo lines and train-track drums. Radiohead couldn¹t even dream of touching the sincerity of the pleas on display here. ŒShoes¹ is hope given music  aspirations of the impossible that somehow feel attainable - a soft crescendo grows in volume and culminates in a wall of glorious country harmonies. An album of unmatched beauty....
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The Angels of Light Sing Other People | Review
()
dosomethingpretty.com | Jonathan FalconeThis release takes folk music and country in a new, more hardened, direction5/5 Michael Gira used to be in Swans, they were one of the most devastatingly powerful bands ever. They played music so loud it was barely listen able and so slow its changes were like ice caps shunting, hardly noticeable, but backed with unrivalled force. He now has his own Young God label, and its output is somewhat different to those accustomed to Swans. Yet it is no less glorious, for ŒOther People¹ is the slow dirge regrets of Johnny Cash backed by chiming clocks and welling country choirs. ³I know somewhere there¹s a God¹ Giras croons deeply in ŒDestroyer¹, and it strikes like thunder in the soul: a preacher venting his frustration on the lord, tired of his work receiving no tangible rewards. ŒOther People¹ masterfully contrasts the lulling nature of folk music and its soft contemplations with a voice of grit and orchestral arrangements that out-speed GSYBE at their most frantic and infected. This release takes folk music and country in a new, more hardened, direction. The Soul of Swans in a sea of fiddles and banjos, can it get more blissful?...