Akron / Family
Meek Warrior

AKRON/FAMILY are a New York -based outfit, formed in 2002. Dana Janssen, Ryan Vanderhoof, Seth Olinsky, and Miles Seaton – all were both vocalists and multi-instrumentalists – came together around the Gimme! Coffee shop in Brooklyn. They began recording low-budget demos and sending them to Young God Records label head Michael Gira, who signed them in 2004. Their self-titled debut album appeared a year later and the band began to develop a madcap reputation for their wide, seamless, stylistic variations – often within the same song – which incorporated everything from Experimental Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Avant-Folk, World Fusion, etc. as well as for their recognizable trademark four-part chanting harmonies. “Meek Warrior” is the band’s second album which followed a split with Michael Gira’s Angels of Light (a project for which Akron/Family actually served as the backing road and studio band). It is a free interpretation through music and lyrics the concept of warriorship in the Shambhala tradition: the first step on the warrior's path is to become meek. The most beautiful thing about this music is that it doesn’t fit any particular stylistic criteria and is weirdly unclassifiable, yet extremely intriguing and entertaining. Strange powers are definitely at work here, throughout the entire 35-minute program. Getting help from Chicago jazz percussionist Hamid Drake, AKRON/FAMILY give praise to their mysterious and indefinable guiding light that leads them from silence to avant-garde skronk, intricate polyrhythmic free-form jazz-rock interplay, mandolin folk breakdowns, apocalyptic noise squall, droning psych-folk, and a cappella mantra chanting. The album is filled with sophisticated changes in texture, dynamic, and form that seem effortless, not forced or idiosyncratic for its own sake. AKRON/FAMILY are real musical wonderers as well as spiritual ones. And “Meek Warrior” is their most realized outing to date. Highly recommended!