Akron/Family

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Akron/Family

Akron/Family is a folk-influenced experimental rock band that formed in 2002, and is currently based in New York.

Music and history

Though each member of the band—Dana Janssen, Seth Olinsky, and Miles Seaton—can be relegated to loosely defined roles (drummer, bassist, vocalist/guitarist respectively), all of them in fact play several instruments and sing, as evidenced by their shows and recorded material: Live, the band uses improvisation and four-part harmonies in prominence. On their self-titled debut record, field recordings of a creaking chair, thunderclaps and the white noise of a television find their way alongside psychedelic and electronic elements, guitars and a glockenspiel.

In 2003, the band began sending demos to Young God Records label head Michael Gira, who announced the following year their signing to the label. Akron/Family, culled from several albums' worth of material recorded in the band's Brooklyn apartment, was released in March of 2005. The Wire said, "Akron/Family's hushed leftfield pastoralism invite comparison with the loose US scene of folk-derived weirdness ... Immaculately interwoven electronics and the care with which each beautifully recorded track unfolds recall Chicago post-rock ..." (Davies 2005).

Released that same month was Angels of Light's The Angels of Light Sing Other People, on which Akron/Family served as the main backing band. Several extensive tours of the United States and Europe with Gira — playing as Angels of Light — followed immediately afterward, lasting much of the rest of the year. In the stretches supporting Gira, the band played dual roles as both the supporting and headlining act; in the stretches without Gira, their touring mates included Great Lake Swimmers and Sir Richard Bishop of Sun City Girls.

A split album of Angels of Light and Akron/Family material was released in October 2005. Shortly after releasing Meek Warrior in October 2006, the band debuted seven demo songs on WNYC radio, suggesting another album was already in the works. The band recently contributed vocals to Canadian post-rock band Do Make Say Think's album, You, You're a History in Rust.

In October of 2007, it was announced that original member, Ryan Vanderhoof, departed the group "amicably sometime between the completion of (2007 release) Love Is Simple and the start of the band's U.S. tour" according to Akron/Family's publicist. The reasoning behind his departure was that "he went to live in a Buddhist Dharma center in the Midwest."

Discography

Albums

Other

  • Akron/Family Live Tour CD (2006; self-released) - 24 track collection of live recordings from 2002 to 2005 sold on tour, limited to 1000 copies.
  • Best Of Seth: 3 CD Set From Seth Olinsky of Akron/Family (2006; Achord Recordings) - 42 tracks, some new as well as different versions of many songs from all of Akron/Family's other albums sold on tour, limited to 500 copies.
  • Akron/Family, Greg Davis, and Megafaun OM EP (2007; self-released) - 8 track collection of live recordings and alternate versions sold on tour, limited to 1000 copies.

Bibliography

External links

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