PRESS
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Akron/Family | Review
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DustedMagazine.com | Nathan Hogan...a formidable assortment of modern and pre-modern styles into a cogent, singular wholeAkron/Family are a collective of four multi-instrumentalists, none of them from Akron, who combine a formidable assortment of modern and pre-modern styles into a cogent, singular whole. Stationed in Brooklyn, the band has struck a symbiotic accord with Young God Records head Michael Gira a similar arrangement to the one that¹s benefited Devendra Banhart for the last few years. Gira helped the band winnow their prodigious body of raw material down to a single full-length, which they professionally re-recorded (and Gira co-produced). In return, Akron/Family assisted Gira with the instrumental arrangements on his new Angels of Light album, which is an unusually lithe and nimble excursion for the Swans founder. With their ³alarmingly long beards² (Gira¹s words) and fondness for the latent sounds and rhythms hidden in everyday objects (squeaking chairs, thumped chests, grinding gears, and the like) Akron/Family are in the same spiritual orbit as out-folk and psych-rock players like the Jeweled Antler Collective, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Charalambides, Tower Recordings and Six Organs of Admittance. The differences, however, are instructive. Akron/Family¹s self-titled debut is devoid of many of the genre¹s more......
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Epiphanies
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the Wire (UK) | March 2005 #253 | M. Girawritten by Michael GiraMichael Gira/Swans/Angels of Light In 1967 I was, if I may say, a beautiful 13-year-old California Boy with long blond hair and I lived in an idyllic beachside suburb of Los Angeles. When not in school which I ditched regularly anyway I was at the beach, at the local park where the freaks gathered, or along the Strand in Venice, where one might occasionally watch the Hell¹s Angels randomly pummel an errant hippie. I avidly consumed the music of The Doors, The Seeds, Love, Country Joe And The Fish (I can still hear Sweet Lorraine though I haven¹t listened to it since) and especially, The Mothers Of Invention. Zappa was my idol. His snide rejection of all things "plastic" (Ha! Ha!), the freaked out weirdness of the music, and his gnarled appearance formed an attractive opposite to my sunny surroundings. Unfortunately, I was also an enthusiastic consumer of another lure of hippie culture drugs: Seconal, Nembutal, Benzedrine, Methedrine, and naturally, LSD. I studiously counted each dose of the latter and by 13 had tripped 200 times. I had a taste for anything chemical and......
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Epiphanies
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the Wire (UK) | March 2005 #253 | M. Girawritten by Michael GiraMichael Gira/Swans/Angels of Light In 1967 I was, if I may say, a beautiful 13-year-old California Boy with long blond hair and I lived in an idyllic beachside suburb of Los Angeles. When not in school which I ditched regularly anyway I was at the beach, at the local park where the freaks gathered, or along the Strand in Venice, where one might occasionally watch the Hell¹s Angels randomly pummel an errant hippie. I avidly consumed the music of The Doors, The Seeds, Love, Country Joe And The Fish (I can still hear Sweet Lorraine though I haven¹t listened to it since) and especially, The Mothers Of Invention. Zappa was my idol. His snide rejection of all things "plastic" (Ha! Ha!), the freaked out weirdness of the music, and his gnarled appearance formed an attractive opposite to my sunny surroundings. Unfortunately, I was also an enthusiastic consumer of another lure of hippie culture drugs: Seconal, Nembutal, Benzedrine, Methedrine, and naturally, LSD. I studiously counted each dose of the latter and by 13 had tripped 200 times. I had a taste for anything chemical and......
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Epiphanies
()
the Wire (UK) | March 2005 #253 | M. Girawritten by Michael GiraMichael Gira/Swans/Angels of Light In 1967 I was, if I may say, a beautiful 13-year-old California Boy with long blond hair and I lived in an idyllic beachside suburb of Los Angeles. When not in school which I ditched regularly anyway I was at the beach, at the local park where the freaks gathered, or along the Strand in Venice, where one might occasionally watch the Hell¹s Angels randomly pummel an errant hippie. I avidly consumed the music of The Doors, The Seeds, Love, Country Joe And The Fish (I can still hear Sweet Lorraine though I haven¹t listened to it since) and especially, The Mothers Of Invention. Zappa was my idol. His snide rejection of all things "plastic" (Ha! Ha!), the freaked out weirdness of the music, and his gnarled appearance formed an attractive opposite to my sunny surroundings. Unfortunately, I was also an enthusiastic consumer of another lure of hippie culture drugs: Seconal, Nembutal, Benzedrine, Methedrine, and naturally, LSD. I studiously counted each dose of the latter and by 13 had tripped 200 times. I had a taste for anything chemical and......
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Akron/Family | Review
()
DustedMagazine.com | Nathan Hogan...a formidable assortment of modern and pre-modern styles into a cogent, singular wholeAkron/Family are a collective of four multi-instrumentalists, none of them from Akron, who combine a formidable assortment of modern and pre-modern styles into a cogent, singular whole. Stationed in Brooklyn, the band has struck a symbiotic accord with Young God Records head Michael Gira a similar arrangement to the one that¹s benefited Devendra Banhart for the last few years. Gira helped the band winnow their prodigious body of raw material down to a single full-length, which they professionally re-recorded (and Gira co-produced). In return, Akron/Family assisted Gira with the instrumental arrangements on his new Angels of Light album, which is an unusually lithe and nimble excursion for the Swans founder. With their ³alarmingly long beards² (Gira¹s words) and fondness for the latent sounds and rhythms hidden in everyday objects (squeaking chairs, thumped chests, grinding gears, and the like) Akron/Family are in the same spiritual orbit as out-folk and psych-rock players like the Jeweled Antler Collective, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Charalambides, Tower Recordings and Six Organs of Admittance. The differences, however, are instructive. Akron/Family¹s self-titled debut is devoid of many of the genre¹s more......