For acts in their infancy, so to speak, their merch table is what makes or breaks a tour. Buy the shirts and posters and all the cool stuff in front of th...
Photography by Silvio Well, once again, it's Friday. How often do we spend 5/7ths of our life waiting for the other 2/7ths to occur? Too often, to be sure... But Some weeks, I'm guilty of it myself. Fortunately, I've got my music to keep me warm, to make moments richer, wanting them to slow down and last, like today's obsession. (nice segue, eh?) New York's Akron/Family's new album Love Is Simple is simply a wonderfully melodic, often jamboree sounding, [...]
So the new Akron/Family leaked earlier this week (as did the new Rogue Wave, but more on that later). Stereogum already previewed "Phenomenon," but now you can enjoy Love Is Simple in its entirety. Bookended by a pair of tracks called, "Love, Love, Love," the band's second full-length follows their now familiar formula of harmony-laden folk accented by electric guitar, organ, and the occasional freak-out. By now you might have picked out the album's emotional theme - love appears on at least a third of the songs, including the excellent mid-tempo "Don't Be Afraid, You're [...]
Just as it looks like the world might suffer from a lethal dose of boredom and angst, the Akron/Family swoop in and deliver their second album thereby making us all a little luckier. It's hard to believe that this really is only the band's second full length album. Between the release of their debut in '05 the band have unleashed two great EP's including a split with Michael Gira and a tour only album, toured and recorded twice as Gira's backing band and Seth Olinsky released three discs worth of demo's. Yet the band sound as vibrant as ever on [...]
Akron/Family - Love Is Simple cd Young God Akron/Family - Don't be Afraid, You're Already Dead (mp3) myspace
The other day I got a real treat; The Mugs sent me a copy of their upcoming album Here Tomorrow, and it's just incredible. I'm already a fan of the Mugs and wrote about them in the previous incarnation of this blog (you can find their free ep Daisy Cutter here , I highly recommend it). While I loved their older work greatly, I have to tell you, they've really stepped it up on this new album. It's more polished, it's bigger, and it's even more beautiful and amazing. I like it so much, I had a really tough [...]
You wouldn't think it to look at their faces (or feet, for that matter) but this bearded quartet grew out of the New York City scene, which is to say, they grew out of it in sheer hermitistic isolation. The kind of isolation that drove one man insane actually divided itself within these four as a prugative, fractalistic musical religion. Actually, there's a pretty funny story that goes along with that last bit. See, after their touted isolationist episode in the hey-days of not-long-before-2005, they sent along everything they had recorded to [...]
Photo by David Greenwald ( more here ) Since hearing the surreal, fractured brilliance of Akron/Family's debut album in 2005, I've considered them one of the most talented, intriguing bands in music today. On that album alone, there's so much range: "Running, Returning" has a Radiohead-like grandeur to it (even moreso live), while other tracks just as easily turn to rootsy folk. But as with so many great debuts, the band had almost nowhere to go but down. Last year's Meek Warrior [...]
Since we know how much you loved the Trapped In The Closet: Chapter 13-22 preview (oh, shit) and you just can't wait 'til Monday when ifc.com kicks off its one-new-chapter-daily Trapped -athon, we didn't think it fair for you to miss out on the sneak peek at Chapter 13 ifc gave us today. Because you love serialized hip hoperas, and we love you. The story picks up with R. (as our hero Sylvester) and Gwen's brother Twan in the familiar, sweet ass SUV, going on some unnamed, shady mission. The [...]
Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra - Some Velvet Morning Lee Hazlewood died this weekend, finally succumbing to the terminal cancer that he'd been diagnosed with last year. Pitchfork has a well-written eulogy, describing Hazlewood as an iconoclast and cataloguing his rare talent for, "scoring the occasional hit in spite of a broad lack of interest in following trends." Though perhaps best know as a collaborator with Nancy Sinatra, Hazlewood was always most compelling to me for his deft blending of cowboy psychedelia with the more traditional tones of Gulf Coast music. Akron/Family - Phenomena [...]
The title isn't so hot and the band's trippy website has just burned psychedelic holes into our eyes, but man have we been digging the Mabuses' Mabused . In fact, we probably would have called them a Band To Watch if they hadn't been around the block so many times. A brief, selective history lesson: The group's 1991 self-titled debut and 1994 sophomore record The Melbourne Man were released on the sadly departed Shimmy Disc (Rough Trade in Europe). More than a decade later the "multi-national" band's returned with aforementioned [...]
Still from Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Andrei Rublev' (1969) Probably one of my favourite scenes in a motion picture comes from Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Andrei Rublev'. The film – a true masterpiece in itself – ends with a shot of several horses in the rain, a beautiful symbolic image. This is what Andrei Tarkovsky himself had to say about this scene: I'd like to point out the film ends with an image of horses in rain. It is a symbolic image as horse for me is a synonym of life. When I'm looking at a [...]
This post is coming to you no frills attached [ie no pictures] as the internet connection here in the boonies is currently suffering from a serious case of "I Hate You" for which, of course, there is no cure. So without further ado here is the next round in our EA Mix series. EA Mix vol 07 - Oh Where Have We Gone zip file : this is the place to get all tracks in one easy to go package. please note that with this link you [...]
All photos by David Greenwald Turns out it's really hard to take photos of a band when they're sitting down. Or playing a 30-minute noise jam. A-Fam did churn out an unbelievable version of "Running, Returning," though. Akron/Family - "I'll Be On The Water": mp3 Akron/Family - "Running, Returning": mp3 (Buy Akron/Family records from Young [...]
De nieuwste audiosport verzamelaar staat vol met fijne muziek zoals die gedraaid is in het Radio 6 programma Dwars plus . Heeft audiosport dan zelf geen inspiratie meer om een leuke cd samen te stellen? Dat wel, maar het werd gewoon eens tijd om de leukste en mooiste nummers (en legaal downloadeble) uit Dwars plus, gedraaid in 2006 overigens (de 2007 compilatie zal snel volgen!!!), te verzamelen en omdat iemand het moest doen... Dus een kleine tachtig minuten folk, experiment, nu-country en improv. Het artwerk van deze verzamelaar kunt u als pdf download ! [...]
Of the last few years I'd have to peg Akron/Family as one of my favorite new bands to emerge. They're a complete and consummate group whose albums embrace a wide breadth stylistically and still manage to sound effortless. Their music is filled with exuberance and love and a playful willingness to let go of the pretension that causes other groups to focus on what people might think of their music. The members of Akron/Family seem to be doing this for themselves. It seems they'd play the same if only a circle of friends wanted to listen as they would to [...]
FREE MP3/AAC UPDATE! Free songs from new, current and future releases: We've posted the MP3 (and AAC, for the multitudes of iPod-faithful) tracks from our promo-only Midheaven .11 Autumn 06 sampler. You can also stream MP3s from the comfort of your preferred browser. The entire CD-- joined as o­ne track-- can be downloaded as well, as a 192kbps AAC file here. [93.4mb AAC file] OR you can download a .zip folder of all the individual AAC tracks in o­ne swell foop.You can also download the artwork/track listing (124kb color .pdf) for this project. Individual tracks: AKRON/FAMILY "Meek Warrior" Streaming MP3 [...]
Tonight's Pick: Akron/Family @ the Echo ($12) – For the freak folk fans. Here's what Michael Gira of the Swans said: "the music veered from gentle American country folk to unabashed electronic noise to gathering and erupting crescendos, to extended skronk improvisations that then suddenly cut to an LSD version of a backwoods barbershop quartet or a Louvin Brothers spiritual – sometimes all within the course of one ridiculously long "song" Download " Gone Beyond " Other Options: The Aquabats @ El Rey (Sold Out)– Pop [...]
This is Midheaven's promo-only Autumn '06 sampler available as free mp3s. You can also download M4a files at midheaven.com . AKRON/FAMILY " Meek Warrior " A HAWK AND A HACKSAW " God Bless The Ottoman Empire " DOSH " Um, Circles And Squares " CAURAL " I Won't Race You " BEIRUT " Mount Wroclai (Idle Days) " KIM DOO SOO " Bohemian " THE KING KHAN & BBQ SHOW " I'll Never Belong " SPARKS " Happy Hunting Ground (Live) " THE BLACK NEON " The Truth " k-the-i??? " Little Did She Know " AWOL [...]
New York band Akron/Family defy description, the tag freak-folk has been used, but i find that term fairly gross. Let me just say that they combine a lot of different styles to brew up an intoxicating blend of music. Their third release Meek Warrior sees the four-piece consolidate their position as one of the most innovative bands working today. Signed to Michael Gira's Young God Records , the band open up with a nine minute sonic assault "Blessing Force", a song that has many different directions, maybe too many to be honest, then what [...]
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