I realize that i am a little late on the uptake here, but fuck it. I have been listening to Akron/Family a lot lately. I don't even know where to start, but I feel like they are a band that is not only worth listening to, but vital for any budding indie nerd to consider. They apparently got their start in Williamsburg, where they spent a lot of their playing in 'Gimme Coffee' before they were signed to Young God Records. Since then the members of the band have changed. One of the original members of the band, Ryan Vanderhoof went to live in a Buddhist Dharma center. But in spite of this absolutely awesome departure, the band is staying strong.
Their folk driven, near transcendental brand of music is real in a way that most music fails to ever be. Their lyrics tend to be simple yet dreamlike. Talking about real things in ethereal terms. They use just enough imagery to get the point across without making it overflow with wasted abstraction and they suit the music perfectly. When listening to Akron/Family you just get sucked in and pulled out at the bands whim. All the sounds blend together in a very intentional way, in a few cases even literally. At one point in Running, Returning' you hear this haunting vocalization and vibrating guitar noise. The two sounds blend until only a few seconds later you can't even tell which you can hear, and even in the midst of all this the feeling the artists are expressing are still clear.
Akron/Family even uses foley well. 99% of the time when i hear a band start sampling street sounds and similar recycled shit, it makes me cringe. But this band can sample everything from lightning bolts to chairs moving and every time the impact is spot on. They are not random noises they are vital parts of the song.
I can't wait to hear more from them...
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