After building up a great, word-of-mouth reputation during the last four years, and gathering an ever-growing legion of obsessive fans, Akron/Family are on the verge of a major breakthrough with Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free, their new album which was released in Europe by Crammed in May 2009.
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 (why else, after all, would they be releasing on Crammed?). Aside from the band's signature close harmony vocal hooks (often found swelling into quasi-tribal ensemble chant ecstasy), 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... there are, in fact, very few musical styles not to find a place at this Family's table, and they all come laced with warm, infectious folk-pop melodies.
Indeed, "family" is the word that binds everything about this elemental, forward-pushing music into one huge, magical and digestible whole: for all its thrilling tangents, the message that underscores Set 'Em Wild... - and the gospel roared from the rooftop of every venue lucky enough to play host to the riotous, chaos-embracing dance party that is the Akron/Family live experience - is one of life-affirming warmth and welcoming: a simple, unpretentious joy in the sense of communion music can bring us, wherever and whoever it's from. After all: if, as that killer opening track claims, "Everyone Is Guilty"... then we're all in it together, right?
AKRON/FAMILY
Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free
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AKRON/FAMILY
River
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