Akron/Family

It was a century ago when I first saw Akron/Family perform, in the tiny back room of a bar in Brooklyn that held perhaps 20 people. Akron sat in chairs on a small stage festooned with red velvet and small theater light bulbs, their plentiful gadgets and musical toys littering more than a few tables - always seemingly on the verge of collapse. The young men awkwardly held their guitars in their laps or gently played drums/percussion, apparently trying not to knock anything over (to disastrous results) mid set. Cables and extension cords laced through their legs, they proffered a sort of delicate, improvisational experimentalism, laced with occasional rock grooves, but most extraordinarily, often punctuated with beautiful 4 part harmonies...

Time passed, and I recall seeing them at a sold out show somewhere in Europe and thinking "Wait! This is fucking Led Zeppelin!" - and that is a huge vote of approval. They sounded nothing like LZ of course, but something about the supercharged commitment and force of the sound evoked a similar full blooded ROCK, albeit with an adventurous, skewed bent and a marked tendency to let things suddenly collapse into utter chaos then snap back just as quickly into focus in a moment of pure, unabashed sonority. Absolutely thrilling, stunning, and great fun, too...

More time passed, and they worshiped at the throne of late period Beatles, filtered through the lens of their own idiosyncratic tendency to mash things up and change atmosphere/context in an instant...

Yet more time passed and free jazz improv and deep sonic meditations came to the fore, always brought into focus with their unique brand of vocal harmony and frankly trenchant melodies...

Now even more time has passed, and we find them rocking (still rocking) but now in a skittering kaleidoscope. The shards of music styles and influences flung through the speakers from all directions, congealing for a second, then just as quickly dissolving into something new and unexpected. They're amphetamine crazed jugglers of sound and texture, but there's always those vocals, rooting the thing in a deep and satisfying place.

It seems to me lots of groups these days view the whole history of music as fair game for their palette, which might be understandable, since it's all there at easy access now, but most of it seems like playing dress up to me, and certainly it exists in inverted commas.

There are no inverted commas in the world of AK. They're inside the music, grinding it, fighting it, chewing it, digesting it, then spewing it up to the sky in a multicolored spray of endless sound and love.