Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Family of God-st,2CD,1996,USA

Family of God is a rich, luxurious pop tapestry of psychedelic rhythms and riffs set to an unconventional atmospheric electronic background. It's music that makes you think of the moment when you give up trying to hold on and lose yourself in the strange beauty of a world of softened edges and shifting patterns. Family of God's debut American record, 1998's We Are the World (the follow-up to the band's critically acclaimed self-titled European debut), may be somewhat ironically titled, but as you listen, this record will blossom and grow in your consciousness until it does seem to become your world. FOG's subsequent release, 2000's Exiter has much the same effect. That's the way the band operates: upon first introduction, you find yourself disoriented by the set of inversions and juxtapositions that make up the band's musical landscape: heavy synthesizer-based dance rhythms, wistful heartfelt pop melodies, odd bits of electronic noise, and random vocal samples. Songs are sometimes cartoonish, sometimes transcendental; they're sometimes pregnant with meaning and hope, sometimes existential and unmoored.
Knowing the names of the members of Family of God helps explain their shimmering, carnivalesque magic-pop. At the band's center is Adam Peters, once the keyboardist and string arranger for the seminal neo-psychedelic British pop band Echo and The Bunnymen. One can definitely hear that relationship in songs like the swirling opus "Atomic Little Thing" (from We Are the World), which sounds like "The Killing Moon" written in the post-electronic musical landscape of the late '90s (it also recalls The Church's wistful pop anthem "Under the Milky Way"). "We Followed the Blind," (from Exiter), also recalls the dramatic musical and lyrical structure of the Bunnymen, but floods it with rich ambient warmth. Peters is joined by New York underground clothing store maven Chris Brick, former Bunnymen guitarist Will Seargeant and former Iggy Pop co-conspirator Eric Schermerhorn. Together these four have learned create moody, millennial electro-pop that feels both forward- and backward-looking in its musical sensibilities.
Jesse Ashlock ,www.epitonic.com

get it here and here

6 comments:

Unknown said...

this was the first vinyl record i ever purchased at age 12, simply because of the cover, at the smylonylon shop in manhattan. what a bizarre full circle, half of my life later.

chris brick used to own cool. his record collection may have been as vast as yours. you should collaborate with rob uptight for the smylonylon tapes.

jez said...

I bought this one for the cover as well at smylon aka center for the dull. Please bless us with the smylonylon tapes- I have hunted those elusive pieces of plastic for years to no avail. nuerotrash had 1 up a while ago that i missed. thanks for keeping this stuff alive.

Unknown said...

hehe...this is neurotrash. sorry about the dead links, i don't have access to the files anymore.

if ANYONE has Smylo Vol. 2: I beg of you, post it somewhere. i lent it to a friend who i haven't seen in years and lost contact with the world. PLEASE!!!

Anonymous said...

oh hello nt! surprise surprise.
so sad to hear you lost the files.
I was praying to see them go up again. tears.

dweller said...

Hey,
I've always liked the exiter cd which I bought after seeing an interview with the main guy behind this group. Thanks for this.

Unknown said...

hello i need to get in on this cuz i need the smylon i cant live without any longer.
i have 4 and 27 and some others. the rest are gone.
i dont know how to post. but i want to share so that i can get some back.
ive never done these things before so tell me what to do!!!