Family of The Mountain

Few bands will aspire to make music that rivals the mountains. More often, they will turn inside themselves or seek out inspiration in their for-bearers. To younger bands the mountains are unwieldy: loud and silent at once, weighty yet hollow. Legions of young musicians have gawked at the beauty of the mountains but  to write music that attempts to compare is to risk falling short and seeming even more like children.  

Every so often new mountaineers emerge. Toting their style as as 'heavy mellow,' these musicians began with a rumble and have continued to climb through lightening and snow with their unique arrangements, stark vocals, and honest words. Whether by accident or out of some brazen audacity, Family Band has taken to the foothills and is making music that rivals the peaks.  

Just as tribal elders perform songs as initiation rites, healing ceremonies, and hunting rituals, when vocalist Kim Krans begins a song her voice demands lucid attention from the listener. She has many things to tell you. What she imparts are musical yarns that warn of the impending winters, of skies that stand still, and of dreams that die in the hills. 

Rhythmically woven with guitar which is as ethereal as it is metallic, Family Band's repertoire draws upon the literal experience living among the mountains. Krans met her husband, guitarist Jonny Olson, in the Catskill Mountains of Northern New York State in 2005.  The duo were introduced at a yearly gathering of fellow musicians and artists on a mountain farm where guests were invited to sleep in an open field surrounded by thick forests.  They first spoke in those woods, slept in that field, and eventually married only to find a plot of land on the opposite side of that mountain. They return each summer, continuing to build and adorn their hand-built cabin home.

I return to the field

and the shapes realign

I will wait for you there

you're an old friend of mine

Lay beside me, the nights are ablaze

and all you couldn't find in the brightness of the day.

What has come of the past five years perched on a hillside is a body of work that seems never short of inspiration.  From their porch, one can see storms that drop over the ridge and into the valley. There are hawks which circle and swoop to their prey.  There are stone walls built by families of centuries past and ponds attributed to melting snow-caps.  To be a guest of Family Band is to be invited to sleep on the side of their mountain and to work their land beside them.  For listeners, Family Band's first LP entitled 'Miller Path' offers a musical depiction of the same raw forces of nature that brought this duo together.  On the lighter side of these songs, one can hear a tenderness that only happens when the musicians share a home, a vision, and a life together.  There is love, there are trees, but just as nature and love are unpredictable and sometimes frightening, their songs grow darker, heavier and eventually rain.  

There's no sound here

There's beauty that could break you

And through the years your jealousy will kill you

Get off the porch, I want to see that moon light you.

What comes of music that is as broad and bold as a storm?  On Family Band's later released EP Cold Songs, the band finds a patter that invites the listener to lean in to the fire.  The lyrics are written to be remembered, repeated, even bellowed.  As their momentum builds and Family Band circles the country, warming audiences for acts like WarPaint and Phosphorescent, one can only imagine the broadening of their capacity.  

For the wild heart, music like this gives authority. Listening gives way to involvement in the band's story, in their methodology of living -- one that knows a sure route to the peak and plays the elements as they come.