The Angels of Light/ Akron/ Family

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

4...according to our Clinton on Mon 27 Nov, 2006.

Is Michael Gira's hair painted on? Can anyone tell me? Anyway here his the new album from the ex Swans man which is a collaboration and split album with Akron/Family. To call it good would be like calling the Eiffel Tower tall. Despite the horrid calvalcade of noise that ruins tracks 1, the Akron/Family side is quite gospel-ish in places with the choraled vocals and lots of fireside sing-a-longs. I much prefer the Angels of Light side (which is Michael Gira backed by Akron/Family). The songs make a lot more sense and have that incredible intensity the Swans always had. Again there's one or two gospel - ish singalongs but this time reigned in by Gira's pop sensibility whereas the Akron Family side runs rather too wild for my tastes. Overall a really interesting collaboration. On Young God Records.

ANGELS OF LIGHT & AKRON/FAMILY (YG30 - SPLIT ALBUM)
TITLE: AKRON/FAMILY & ANGELS OF LIGHT
RELEASE DATE: OCT' 31/2005

A week after an extended US Tour and a few shows in Europe Akron/Family and I went into the studio and recorded this album straightaway. Everything was recorded live, with a few overdubs - mixed and finished in nine 8-hour days. Akron/Family is my favorite "Rock Band" in the universe (or "rock-related band" - something like that!). I watched every show they did from beginning to end for about 40 concerts and was consistently amazed. The audience responses - for a then almost completely unknown band - were astounding. They tear down the roof. They generate such pure JOY, coupled with a wild sense of constant invention, that it's impossible not to get sucked into their weird world of sonic chaos, then gorgeous vocal harmonies, then march-of-the-crazed-clowns with ever-escalating psychedelic mantra crescendos, then country stomps, then genuinely touching plaintive, atmospheric songs, then extended improvisations, then into some kind of Beatles meets Beefheart backwoods midnight incantation ("Raising The Sparks" - a song that never fails to get the audience whooping like suddenly zapped and enlightened idiots) - and on and on. A friend of mine saw them and, struggling to find a way to describe them, said that they contain the entire history of rock music, sometimes in a single song. Ha ha! Preposterous, but sort of accurate. So, their songs on this album, coming right off a lengthy tour in which they also played a set of my songs every night as Angels of Light, just leap out of the speakers, in my opinion. I don't think I've ever seen a band in the 25 years that I've been personally making "rock" music contain the elements of exuberant experimentation, flat out intense, ecstatic and focused performance, and immediate accessibility that they possess.... Also contained on this album are 5 songs performed by me, with Akron/Family serving as (my) Angels of Light. They have an uncanny ability to step into the world of the songs I wrote (also covered here is Bob Dylan's "I Pity The Poor Immigrant²) - without imposing their own aesthetic - and lift them up to something beyond what I could have initially imagined. I've never had a better backing band, ever. I hope you enjoy this record!

- Michael Gira/Angels of Light/Young God Records

This album was recorded and mixed at Trout Recording, Brooklyn, by Bryce Goggin (Phish, Lemonheads, Ramones, Swans, Pavement, Angels of Light etc etc). It was co-Produced by Michael Gira and Akron/Family.

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