Akron/ Family - Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free

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5...according to our Brian on Thu 23 Jul, 2009.

One of the most pleasant surprises of the week was falling hook, line & sinker for the new Akron/Family album, 'Set 'Em Wild, Set 'em Free'. Never a more appropriate title for this fluid, galloping take on weird rock & psychedelic outsider folk, these guys have been staunch faves of Uncle Philly's for aeons now & I can hear why, for sure, on playing this. They seem to have hit on an savvy vein of hugely eclectic, classic guitar music & skewed Western improv rock where afro guitars can playfully tumble with the sort of airy, studious but huggable foot stomping rhythyms that have you grinning with delight. Strings, brass & electronics are occasionaly employed in a restrained & amiable manner. Elsewhere a bassline bobs amongst skittering percussion as lyrics are projected like a calming mantra. Track four offers a tender slant on alt country/folk that is simultaneously wistful & ecstatic. These chaps aren't afraid of letting their songs suddenly explode in swathes of taut chaos, walls of hazy, spiralling guitar & acid fried mentalism either. 'MBF', for instance, is one sick puppy that completely assaults your senses, but in a wonderful fashion! There's one track that recalls classic Beck/Flaming Lips territory, all gently off kilter woozy vocals, chimes & bells, like a mildly drunken campfire dream. This is the most satisfying album of contemporary Americana i've heard in an age, these guys infuse their unpredictable cerebral tunes with the sort of hugely innovative nous that made the sorely missed (& underappreciated) Dismemberment Plan such a delight and thus their music is quite uncategorisable as such. Such a broad range of styles & moods that somehow flow immaculately. Close runner up for AOTW in the busy pre-Summer rush of quality releases, this could well be the modern equivelent of 'Deserters Songs'!

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After building up an incredible, word-of-mouth reputation during the last four years, gathering an ever-growing legion of obsessive fans, Akron/Family are on the verge of a major breakthrough with their inimitable, kaleidoscopic brand of global psychedelic folk rock music.

Set 'Em Wild... is set to be one of the year's landmark releases and, as its cover suggests, sees the band effect their own entirely unique and inclusive vision of a United States of Music. From the impossibly slinky ethno-funk groove that kicks off first track Everyone Is Guilty onwards, it's clear that this band adopts a wonderfully lateral approach to guitar-based rock music. Aside from the band's signature close harmony vocal hooks, the Akron/Family musical vocabulary packs in Fela-like rhythmic momentum, heady Funkadelic guitar chops, intricate Ali Farka Toure chord tapestries, skittering, almost Timbaland-esque electronic percussion, frenzied gusts of Albert Ayler brass... and all are laced with warm, infectious folk-pop melodies.

Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free is the band’s first recording since parting ways with ex-Swans Michael Gira’s label, Young God Records. They recorded two albums for Young God as well as recording and touring USA and Europe backing Gira as part of his Angels of Light project.

Personnel:
Seth Olinsky (guitar, vocals), Miles Seaton (bass, vocals), Dana Janssen (drums, vocals)

Tracks:

1. Everyone Is Guilty
2. River
3. Creatures
4. The Alps & Their Orange Evergreen
5. Set 'Em Free
6. Gravelly Mountains of the Moon
7. Many Ghosts
8. MBF
9. They Will Appear
10. Sun Will Shine (Warmth of the Sunship Version)
11. Last Year