Akron/Family are an odd musical creature. On one hand they create pure, unadulterated Americana pop, feeling the music and encouraging sing-alongs; then just as easily wade out into noise-nerd territory, with a kind of hippie spiritualism that pervades it all.
So it was at their Corner Hotel gig, where they spent some time on jangly and atonal atmos-building effects. They slowly and skilfully elevated to crescendo from these quiet crunch-laden beginnings.
Miles Seaton had a table set up in front of him with lots of toys, but mostly he jumped up and down on bass, emphatically articulating long strums and tapping at the fret with his fingers. Bespectacled Seth Olinsky was on guitar and likewise had a table full of Roland samplers, pedals and other fiddly knobbly bits. Dana Janssen sat at a drum kit behind them.
Seaton and Olinsky had a fraternity of movement going as they played, playing to each other when they weren’t singing and bobbing back and forth like bowing priests.
All three shared vocal responsibilities, their healthy, broad voices bouncing off the faces of an appreciative and eager audience.
Watching Akron/Family, you are struck by their versatility and the ability to move from moods and tonal ranges, sonorous vocals and strum-heavy sounds to quiet-as-a-mouse pianoforte and even heavier electronic glitch.
Songs like “Another Sky” with its eminently singable chorus of “Woahh oh o ho oh” evoke sunny outdoors – cornfields and red barns under blue skies, and this seems central to Akron/Family’s vibe.
Those moments when they stray into electronic sampler segues – manipulating loops and distortion pedals, screaming into mics and scuzzing out to knob-twiddling nuances – can perhaps be understood within the context of their passion for John Cage; and his expansive understanding of what constitutes music.
It was Cage that famously said: “Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating”, and perhaps this is well remembered when watching this sort of electronic distortion live, because it is easy to become restless or impatient when you’re not the one twiddling the knobs.
They played a lot of songs from the S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT, their most recent album. “Silly Bears” and “Island” were highlights, and their vowel sound speciality ‘A AAA O A WAY’. They liked to experiment with highs and lows, intensity and stillness, sweetness and abrasion – each song potentially traversing the entire mood and sound spectrum.
They were also big on audience participation, trying out “Sydney was better than that” rivalry taunts and pleading for us to “come on” and clap along. Unfortunately, not every person has an innate sense of rhythm, and things descended into a morass of claps rather than the well defined sequence that we were encouraged to take up in the first instance.
But there was also a sense of comraderie and jest with the audience, getting us to do a simple dance that required a moment’s meditation to gain the “inner dance” – getting us to visualise a beachscape, to close our eyes and imagine that we were incredibly happy and also rich – so that our “mind body and spirit engaged”
This went to greater heights, when at one point Seaton got into the audience and wove around people, getting one awkward but slightly chuffed dude up on his shoulders, and darting around the crowd like a happy bundle of eagerness.
The show ended with a touching but slightly Kumbaya moment, the three of them gathered around a single mic, singing in the round with lyrics calling on the Lord and love and such warm and fuzzies. It really reinforced the holistic and diverse approach that Akron/Family take – merging genres and sensibilities within the scope of one song; and encouraging people to take part in the experience.
Not for everyone, that degree of audience involvement, but nevertheless an integral and honest part of the Akron/Family way. No matter how disparate it seemed, the elements that Akron/Family chose to weave in were somehow just another true expression of what they were interested in, and that gave it a cohesion and quality that was pretty unique.
– Anaya Latter
