Harvest Records of West Asheville will be celebrating its 5-year anniversary with TRANSFIGURATIONS -- an intimate gathering of Harvest's favorite musical artists today.
Akron/Family
Akron/Family are one of those exasperatingly unknowable bands. They've concocted an image, all right - check out their MySpace page or the Young God Records one, and you will quickly be advised that they are "extremely nice, sincere and well-mannered young men from rural America who came to New York City in 2002 to make music." But other than that and the occasional unfounded rumor that they practice a made-up cultish religion called AK (pronounced "ack"), the only way to know these apparently affable twenty-something fellows - the original lineup consisting of vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Seth Olinsky, from Williamsport, PA; vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Miles Seaton, from Porterville, CA; vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Dana Janssen, from Williamsport, PA; and lead vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Ryan Vanderhoof, from Union Springs, NY - is through their music, which falls squarely into the freak folk category launched, in the minds of the popular culture, anyway, single-handedly by Devendra Banhart. Through three albums made in a Brooklyn home studio and, more recently (2005), through a collaboration with Young God labelmate Angels of Light, Akron/Family have earned themselves a madcap reputation: songs that start in a Beatles-inspired place inevitably erupt into skronk before settling into country sweetness, and folk-raised spirituals dart through Led Zeppelin territory, with '60s rock and general psychedelia also major themes. In addition to the more obvious influences - the Beatles, Brian Wilson, Dylan, the Band - Radiohead, Captain Beefheart, and acts like Spiritualized also clearly have infiltrated the Family ipods, and to impressive effect. Following their 2005 self-titled debut on Young God and a split with Angels of Light (also serving as the backing road and studio band for that Michael Gira project), Akron/Family released their follow-up album, 'Meek Warrior', in October 2006. In 2007, lead vocalist Ryan Vanderhoof left after recording the adventurous 'Love Is Simple'. The group remained a trio for the 2009 release 'Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free'. The album was released by the Dead Oceans label in America and Crammed Discs in Europe.
Let’s just say this up front: Akron/Family killed. They were the best show of the night — edging even a reunited Dinosaur Jr. and flat out demolishing everyone else. No breaks between songs, no real differentiation between songs, no pauses, no banter, just one continuous freakout that touched the highlights of their new record, easily their best, without slavishly replicating it. A bit of “River”, an exhilarating chant of “Higher Higher”, the percussion-mad long intro to “Everyone’s Guilty”, the plaintive campfire sing-along about hard years gone and better ones ahead—it was all there, all mixed and spliced and conjured into something else again, something living and breathing and dancing its ass away. (Mine is smaller today, I checked.) Do you know that feeling you get sometimes, that “I’m so glad I’m still alive so I can still go to shows and be blown away?” feeling? I was overcome by that feeling. It felt good. -Popmatters.com
Circulatory System
http://myspace.com/thecirculatorysystem
Will Cullen Hart purposely stepped off the indie pop radar after once being a key songwriting force in the homespun psychedelic troop known as the Olivia Tremor Control. Sometime in 2000, the Ruston, LA native began woodshedding in his Athens, GA home to paint and decompress after the band's whirlwind success exceeded his personal tolerance levels. Eventually, new songs slowly began to creep out of his psyche. While Bill Doss, the Olivia's other principal songwriter, actively continued to pursue his solo Sunshine Fix project, Hart collected up the remaining members of Olivia (Peter Erchick, John Fernandes, and Eric Harris), Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum, and local string player Heather Mcintosh to produce Circulatory System's 2001 self-titled debut. The album was recorded largely in the trippy environs of Hart's bedroom studio. Late that year, a touring version of the band hit the road to support the release. While amicably split, future collaborations between Hart and Doss are uncertain.
Seven and a half years in the making, culled from hours of recorded material sculpted in at least seven different studios, the new Circulatory System album is an absolutely stellar document of song and sound. Still concerned with matters of the inner / the outer, the incomprehensibly huge and the very, very small. An imperative blast of kinetic motion, composed by W. Cullen Hart while in the midst of battling Multiple Sclerosis within his own system - broadcasting his urgent pleas to the world(s) to evolve into a higher dimension or for existing patterns to reveal themselves at peace within the natural order of the universe.
The War On Drugs
http://myspace.com/thewarondrugs
Mixing the grand-scale guitar attack of Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine with a melodic sense and lyrical perspective that recalls Bob Dylan roaring down Highway 61, Philadelphia's the War on Drugs are the creation of a pair of Dylan fans, Adam Granduciel and Kurt Vile, who met at a party in 2003. After several drinks, Granduciel and Vile discovered their shared fascination with the Bard of Minnesota, and began working on songs together. By 2005, the pair had enough material to launch a proper band, and the War on Drugs were born. With Granduciel and Vile fronting the band, a variety of accompanists drifted in and out of the lineup before the War on Drugs settled on a stable lineup of Granduciel on vocals, guitar, and keyboards; Vile on guitar and vocals; Charlie Hall on organ and drums; Dave Hartley on bass; and Kyle Lloyd on drums and percussion. While the War on Drugs were hesitant to quit their jobs and begin touring extensively, the band became a frequent presence on the Philadelphia music scene and impressed out-of-towners during occasional gigs in New York City. In 2007, the band completed its debut EP, a five-song set called 'Barrel of Batteries', posted online as a free download. Positive press for both the EP and the group's powerful live shows caught the attention of the noted independent label Secretly Canadian, which signed the band, releasing its first full-length album, 'Wagonwheel Blues', in June 2008.
Jonathan Kane
http://myspace.com/jonathankane
Jonathan Kane is a Downtown NYC legend - as co-founder of the no-wave behemoth Swans, and the rhythmic thunder behind the massed-guitar armies of Rhys Chatham and the rock excursions of La Monte Young, and as one of the hardest-hitting drummers on the planet. On his critically acclaimed 2005 and 2006 releases 'February', and 'I Looked At The Sun', Kane summons Swans' concussive wallop, Chatham's dense guitar strata, and the perpetual propulsion of 70's krautrockers Neu, then steers it all head-on into... the blues. Make no mistake about it: Kane is a bluesman, and beneath his music's hip shaking high-decible bombast, he's powering guitar-driven minimalism into the blues, and the blues into guitar-driven harmonic maximalism. 'February' and 'I Looked At The Sun' made dozens of '05 and '06 Best Of Lists, and his US and European tours with his six piece, four guitar band: "Jonathan Kane's February", electrified audiences, drew critical raves and gained him another generation of fans. After three decades Jonathan Kane continues to be an unstoppable force on concert stages around the world, and his music is “As remorseless in it’s momentum as a wheat thresher with a well filled tool box on the gas pedal... white line fever transmuted into sound that'll take the wheel and drive your car across Kansas without ever hitting the shoulder” (Dusted). Defining the shape of blues to come, As Rolling Stone sums it up: Kane is, quite simply, "volcanic".
8pm. $20.
Advance tickets available online, and at Harvest Records and The Grey Eagle.
Standing room only.
Click here for weekend passes and additional TRANSFIGURATIONS information.
Other artists playing TRANSFIGURATIONS include: Bonnie Prince Billy, The Budos Band, The Books, The Coathangers, Espers, Mount Eerie, Kurt Vile & the Violators, Brightblack Morning Light, Ice Cream, Steve Gunn, & Villages.
