Akron/Family, "River" (2009)

find it on Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free

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When Limo Crazy* and I used to share an office, we would trade CD-Rs filled with mp3s to provide the audio for our daily music conversations. The stuff that Limo gave me shuffled into my ears (because I'm a shuffle kind of guy) and some of it was a revelation. Some of it I wasn't so crazy about. One of the bands that I was consistently not crazy about was the songs from Akron/Family's self-titled record.

So it was a pretty big surprise when "River", a song that got into my library through a Mojo comp, kept perking up my ears when it shuffled its way to me (because I'm a shuffling kind of guy). It's got an early 90's vibe to it, but maybe that's mostly the arpeggiated guitar part. More than the time is the feel: a carefree melody, poetic lyrics, little tastes of catchiness. Bless them for cutting a little bit of the freak from their folk.

* who is currently lost in the wilds of Brooklyn. I knew we should have tagged him with a sensor before he left.