AKRON FAMILY - Akron / Family – Akron / Family & The Angels Of Light

There are certain figures who have a nose for talent — the pure kind, crystalline and beyond dispute. Ears sharper than most. Michael Gira, ex-Swans and deus ex machina of Young God Records, is one of those people, and we owe him a heartfelt thank you. Fate would have it that the outsiders got the upper hand over the usual star player, the one on magazine covers, the one dating the famous pretty girl: having handed Devendra Banhart over to XL, something very close to a major label, Michael put four unknowns into play — three bearded, one not (not yet) — and gave them free rein, never boring them with suggestions or blueprints. He trusted them, because as usual, he had seen further ahead than anyone else. Akron/Family is the name of Michael Gira's latest bet.

The Akron family is made up of four likeable slackers, transplanted to New York some time ago, who love shuffling the musical deck, hiding clear leanings toward the most intimate singer-songwriter folk within the folds of a hazy, seemingly improvised "quiet-noise-rock." That impression, though, is grounded more in the band's (phenomenal) live performances than in their records, which tend to be calmer and mostly acoustic. And yet there's a drive in Akron/Family — almost masochistic at times, you might say — to blunt the more classic edges of their sound (which does have plenty of classic in it) with frequent bursts of noise and sudden tonal shifts within songs, often genuine mini-suites.

On the self-titled debut album released on Young God in spring 2005 — reportedly whittled down from enough material to fill a triple CD — a sincere pull toward old folk roots emerges, one that both renews and denies the bet placed by the pioneers of the latest prewar-folk revival, already running out of steam of late. In the Family's sound, in fact, it's not easy to trace overtly American acoustic roots, and the quartet's Norwegian origins can be felt in the ancient atmospheres, though not necessarily as dusty and frayed as the US standard for the genre would suggest. A very old Europe, almost medieval — as the album artwork also suggests — seems to be the quartet's reference world, forever caught between tradition and modernity, as in the digital chimes that punctuate the anguished "Before And Again," which opens the album and is bookended by an out-there improvisation from friends Nmperign (like a mischievous devil dropped into holy water).

This is music that almost always shuns predictability and cliché, so much so that it often builds mini-suites under four minutes long, in which a handful of genuine movements chase each other without pause. "Suchness" moves from a hazy, almost soul-tinged opening into a lo-fi experiment of little choruses and found percussion, which swells into a heartfelt invocation before derailing into a muscular finale complete with a textbook electric guitar solo. "Part of Corey" even drags musique concrète into the mix, but the real draw of the record remains the melodies: the sketched-out one steeped in poetic indolence of "Afford," the one swollen with textbook Radiohead-style spleen of "Sorrow Boy," which lodges itself in your head in an instant, and the classic, gorgeous one — duly roughed up, just to show how little these guys take themselves seriously — of "I'll Be On The Water." Radiohead again in "Running/Returning," another song emblematic of the four's undeniable talent: the shimmering pop of the first half, all arpeggios, interweaving lines and choruses supporting a voice that really does resemble Thom Yorke's, which naturally evolves and shifts into a lilting folk dirge. Among the finest things heard this year.

Finally, one can't help but mention the achingly liquefied chimes of the guitar in "Italy," which stretches out gently, steel guitar and all, for 8 minutes, and "Lumen," emotional to the point of dizziness thanks to its solemn pace, lost amid ethereal mists through which the voice nearly cracks, twisted by a touching melody.

The most recent album made together with godfather Michael Gira (where the Angels Of Light credited in the title are none other than Akron/Family themselves) pushes even further into the joyful, crystal-clear creative chaos the band displayed on their recent Italian tour. "Awake" opens with a slow, heartfelt madrigal that unfolds mournfully in the manner of Low, before leading into "Moment," which starts off furious and improvised before settling into a martial rock groove reminiscent of the Chicago post-rock era (the guitar's jagged edges speak the language of June Of '44), buoyed by yet another chorus — a mode the band excels at — before spilling into a prog digression that leads to a closing melody that's pure distilled Beatles, every bit as good as the originals. Guitar-driven impact ("Dylan pt.2," the almost hard-rock "Raising The Sparks") and assorted oddities (the ending of "Future Myth") follow one another once again, never giving the listener time to settle into easy certainties.

The tracks with Gira, opened by the Dylan-esque "I Pity The Poor Immigrant" (a classic from "John Wesley Harding", cult album of the prewar generation), are just a bit more conventional, but still marked by a subtly refined, psychedelic sound, never shying away from unexpected shifts in scenery and strange forms of tribal soul (as in "Mother Father"). The Young God label boss, without turning things upside down the way the Akron family does, once again proves his stature: songs played from the heart, charged with emotion and a genuine love for roots music. A bet well won, Mr. Gira - and won big: one gets the impression, too, that these strange characters still have plenty to say, and we truly hope they'll soon return to delight us with their unconventional, captivating musical visions. A jolt to the folk landscape and a notice for the future: don't lose sight of them, they deserve all our attention.

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30/04/2026