On The Turntable

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    Fugazi

    Fugazi :: Red Medicine

    In 1995 Fugazi released Red Medicine which to us here at AD was a radical shift in the band’s recorded trajectory. The arrangements grew more complex, the studio-as-instrument ethos becoming fully realized with more extreme textures. From lo-fi abstractions to widescreen feedback, to moments of tender beauty, the overall feel of the album felt more personal, even down to the packaging itself.

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    Styrofoam Winos

    Styrofoam Winos :: Real Time

    Styrofoam Winos—the Nashville-based trio of Lou Turner, Trevor Nikrant, and Joe Kenkel—follow up their 2021 self-titled debut with Real Time, an endearing and invigorating collection of shaggy southern rock and dusty, woolen folk. With a lo-fi, ambling ease, they cruise through road-weary choogles; swampy, faded funkers; harmonica swept confessionals; and meditative, noodling jaunts through the passage of time.

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    Werther

    Werther :: 1970 S/T

    A fine fit for the coming turn of the season, Brazilian singer and guitarist Werther’s 1970 self-titled album is a warm and inviting document of gentle, airy bossa-nova, the music lively and eclectic with folk and Tropicália inflections and adorned with sumptuous orchestral arrangements and choral gatherings.

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    Yoshiko Sai

    Yoshiko Sai :: Mangekyou

    Before the explosion of city pop, before shibuya-key and Tokyo’s collectors mania, there was already Mangekyou itself, the 1975 debut record from Yoshiko Sai, then just a 22 year old dropout from the art school of Kyoto. Approaching the 50 year anniversary of Sai’s legendary debut, WEWANTSOUNDS has announced a reissue that will see the album available outside of Japan for the first time ever.

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    Chu Kosaka

    Chu Kosaka :: Arigato

    Chu Kosaka’s Arigato is wide-open pastoral bliss. The natural extension of Happy End with a bit more of a singer-songwriter orientation, Kosaka pieces together what could be the finest example of American country rock through the lens of a Japanese perfectionism. Don’t let that fool you. The tunes are loose.

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    Les Rallizes Dénudés

    Les Rallizes Dénudés :: 屋根裏 YaneUra Oct. ’80

    YaneUra Oct. ‘80 is their latest release, which bridges the gap between the classic Live ‘77 and the recently unearthed CITTA’ ‘93, which was released for the first time in 2023.

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    Keanu Nelson

    Keanu Nelson :: Wilurarrakutu

    … Mississippi Records reissue of last year’s revelatory, Keanu Nelson album Wilurarrakutu to a worldwide audience. Nelson is an aboriginal Australian from Papunya, a remote community northwest of Alice Springs, and for this album he recorded himself freely singing his own poems over template Casio beats. Expect simple reggaes, apotheotic synthpop ballads, and new age devotional hymns.

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    Christopher Owens

    Christopher Owens :: I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair

    It’s been long enough. This is the album we’ve been waiting for Christopher Owens to make for over a decade… as bold and beautiful and great as any one of the immortal Girls records.

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Office Culture :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Inspired by a dream in which he produced a CD called Enough, the latest from Office Culture signals a shift in songwriter/producer Winston Cook-Wilson’s whip smart songcraft: employing a wide cast of collaborators, including guest appearances by Alena Spanger, Sam Sodomsky’s The Bird Calls, and Jackie West, he turns his attention to rhythms, textures, and mood, creating mini-movies with each of the album’s 16 songs. From clanking, layered polyrhythms, to melodious fretless bass, to pensive piano ballads, it’s a dynamic listen that feels as personal as it does ambitious.

Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980)

The late 1970s were a good time for Joni Mitchell’s music. The latest volume of the Joni Mitchell Archives series focuses on this period through demos, outtakes, and live recordings. It’s not a complete picture, but it’s one that helps explain how a folk singer from the Canadian prairies came to work with jazz heavyweights and write lyrics for a Charles Mingus standard.

Styrofoam Winos :: Real Time

Styrofoam Winos—the Nashville-based trio of Lou Turner, Trevor Nikrant, and Joe Kenkel—follow up their 2021 self-titled debut with Real Time, an endearing and invigorating collection of shaggy southern rock and dusty, woolen folk. With a lo-fi, ambling ease, they cruise through road-weary choogles; swampy, faded funkers; harmonica swept confessionals; and meditative, noodling jaunts through the passage of time.

Transmissions :: Frosty and Hermanos Gutiérrez

This week on the show, we’re joined by three guests—though, not all at once. In the first half of the show: Mark “Frosty” McNeill of dublab and the LA Phil to discuss a new compilation he helped produce, Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971​-​1996; in the second-half of the show, Estevan and Alejandro Gutierrez, better known as Hermanos Gutiérrez just us to discuss their latest album of spacey guitar instrumentals, Sonido Cosmico.

Sun Araw :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Sun Araw’s Cameron Stallones doesn’t stick to one mode. Since 2007, he’s exercised extreme artistic freedom, creating tapestries of experimental pop, zoned-out soundscapes, MIDI-symphonies, and dub-inflected synthscapes. On his 10th album, Lifetime, he spent years manipulating his bandmates’ contributions digitally, blending improv and post-production, resulting in a florid space of clapping drums, guitar scrawls, and oozy synths, all aided by sunny, yacht rock ready melodies. He joins us to discuss the record, as well as his collaborations with legends like Laraaji and The Congos

Oscar Peterson :: Romance (1954)

Our ‘Midnite Jazz’ series continues with an often overlooked release from Oscar Peterson’s mid-fifties output. Romance features the decorated jazz pianist stepping in front of the microphone for his vocal debut, softly crooning his way through standards and ballads with pure class and cozy intimacy.

Christopher Owens :: I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair

It’s been long enough. There’s no need to play coy, no sense in waiting any longer than we already have. I’ll state it plainly here at the top: this is the album we’ve been waiting for Christopher Owens to make for over a decade. I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair is an extraordinary, wholly unexpected achievement, as bold and beautiful and great as any one of the immortal Girls records.

It may, in fact, be better.

Osees :: SORCS 80

No guitars! For his 28th album at the helm of the Osees, John Dwyer and a crew of art punk instigators switch to synths, samplers, drum machines and two saxophones. That’s a radical change, but it makes surprisingly little difference. If you know the Osees at all, you’ll recognize the sound immediately.

Cass McCombs :: Seed Cake On Leap Year

For an artist who ordinarily focuses on what’s next, Cass McCombs has been doing quite a lot of rummaging through the vaults lately. This collection of early, unreleased material comes out at the same time as the backwards looking 2000​-​2004 Demos, Live and Radio, which is to say the very beginning of the McCombs emergence as an artist.

Anaïs Mitchell :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

There seems to be something downright mystical about everything Anaïs Mitchell does. With Bonny Light Horseman’s Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free, a double album and their third release to date, blends conversational songwriting and a cast of characters culled from our collective mythology to expand upon their already rich brand of storytelling and music-making. Anaïs joined us via Zoom from her family farm in Vermont.