“moment” – akron/family

“Moment” – Akron/Family (download here)
recorded 15 November 2005
Brick House, London, UK

(file expires 23 February)

Saw a great show in Greenpoint last night: Akron/Family, who I’ve been keen to catch for at least a year. Acting on my new resolution to steal global and buy local, I walked away with the A/F’s latest $10 tour CD, a live set recorded in London in November 2005. It pretty well captures the spirit of last night, too.

The third main thing I love about “Moment” is that its structure is reversed: it begins with chaos, resolves into a verse, and — eventually — gets to the simplest, most stripped down statement of the song. The second thing I love is that the arrangement — both on the CD and live, last night — is still at the stage where everything is tight enough to be blistering but still new enough to implode. Of course, that’s the main effect of Akron/Family, controlled chaos, underscored by their all-hands-on-deck vocals. If they keep going (and it seems like they’ve got all the proper momentum), I’ll be curious to see if they can keep up this particular energy.

And, really, what I love about “Moment” is all the different sections. They fit together in a most pleasing way, especially the drop from the wall-of-noise intro to the first verse. Then, more chaos, a noisy jam-jam (and, man, there’s nothing post- about this jam) and that lovely coda. It’s just dramatic. I’m not sure if I can really get behind the hippie-dippy lyrics (about, y’know, the Moment), but they recover quickly with a line about old friends and new clothes, and glide out on the indie-brand Beach Boys harmonies. It’s all the fun of Animal Collective, without (most of) the foreboding inaccessibility. Dig it.

see also: “untitled demo no. 3“