A Prayer For Every Hour

There's new reason to rejoice now that this lost classic from '94 -- the world's first glimpse of the remarkable Smith family of New Jersey, best known as the Danielson Famile -- is being made available once again to the public. Having been described as the "most joyously eccentric group of performers to ascend the New Jersey Turnpike since Sun Ra's Arkestra" (Richard Gehr, Spin Magazine), the Famile has been slowly unfurling their mythology to the public for nearly a decade now. The group, led by eldest brother Daniel, initially had critics and audiences alike scratching their heads wondering if their collision of aesthetics and spirituality was, as some put it, "an elaborate put-on." In those days artists and rockers alike were dumbfounded by just how complicated a marriage the Famile's collision of aesthetics and faith seemed to them. In '94, there weren't many artists weened on Sonic Youth and the Pixies who were as serious about spirituality as the Danielson Famile. The independent rock underground, rather, was more comfortable leaving faith issues to be dealt with by folks such as Marvin Gaye and George Harrison. Daniel and Co., however, have helped contribute to a partial breaking down of that barrier of cool, and it all started with A PRAYER FOR EVERY HOUR, a 24-song cycle of tunes intended to be performed or experienced once an hour, on the hour, as a devotional gesture of faith.