Akron/Family: Meek Warrior

AKRON/FAMILY:  MEEK WARRIOR  (YG33) Release: September 25 / ‘06

Since the debut Akron/Family album came out in March ’05 they’ve
played hundreds (and hundreds) of shows across the known world,
recorded / released and toured for a split album with Angels of Light
(also serving as backing band in the latter, both in studio and on
tour), recorded a few home brewed albums they sell on the road, and
have generally worked themselves to death, or at least into a new
entity they themselves maybe don’t even recognize. And now this: a
new “special”  album that has been blaring in my office constantly,
obsessively, for weeks now and that once again shows them morphing
into something simultaneously unfamiliar, wild, gentle, raging,
hilarious, elated and meditative - riddled with chaos and sonic
contradiction, and sometimes just simply beautiful – the song “Gone
Beyond” is the sort of palliative hymn I want to hear while suddenly
finding myself drifting through the universe having unexpectedly
jettisoned the meat-grinder of earthly existence - where perhaps
songs like “Blessing Force” , played repeatedly at full volume, have
pummeled me into hapless insensibility. All of this ultimately gets
sorted out and makes for a stunning document, in my opinion. At the
time of this writing they’re ensconced in the mountains somewhere on
a much-needed recuperative retreat. Good thing, because this fall and
winter they’ll be touring again and also recording another new album
for YGR, to be released early next year, when they’ll tour again, and
on to infinity... I hope you enjoy the music!  - Michael Gira/Young
God Records

Here’s what Seth has to say about making this recording: “These songs
were written about a year ago by individual band members and then
hashed out as a band together on the road in hotels and in the van
the few weeks prior to the studio time in Chicago, while we were all
freezing in the winter hinterlands of Canada, wheezing with
bronchitis…The recording in Chicago was nuts. We played in Iowa City
Monday night. Then drove all that night, slept 2 hours on the corner
of 23rd and Michigan in Chicago outside the studio in the van. Then
started setting up to record at 10:00 am and recorded until 8:00 pm.
Then we headed straight to Urbana Illinois to play that same night.
Then drove back to Chicago that same night after the show, started
recording that next morning at 10:00 am, recorded all day again, and
then left again at 8;00 pm to play that same night in Milwaukee. It
was extremely crazy, and i can't remember if we have ever been more
disoriented and tired before…We recorded at Shape Shoppe in Chicago
and it was engineered by Griffin Rodriguez…Griffin also plays upright
bass on track 4, no Space in this realm…The big emphasis on doing
this recording was the chance to record two days in Chicago with our
favorite free jazz master drummer Hamid Drake. He has played on
hundreds of records with jazz luminaries Peter Brotzmann, Don Cherry,
Pharaoh Sanders, William Parker, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark -
the list goes on … We did an additional day of recording with the Do
Make Say Think/ Broken Social Scene guys in Toronto, two days with
Jason La Farge at Seizure’s Palace in Brooklyn, and countless mind
droning moments in my (Seth's) apartment.  Mixed and mastered with
Doug Henderson. Production was Akron/Family and Michael Gira. We
recorded ourselves in Chicago and then a day in Toronto, and then we
went back to NY and did two more studio days and mixing with
Michael.”

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