Somehow, Neil Young turns 80 this year, and we’re getting the celebration started early with the fifth edition of Honey Slides, our annual Shakey rarities roundup — this one focused on the acoustic side of things. Even with the outrageously expansive Archives Vol. III being released just a few months back, there are plenty of dusty cabinets of the man’s discography (both official and semi-official) to rummage through. From live oddities to unusual arrangements, from solo performances to full band renditions, Honey Slides V covers plenty of ground, despite its generally stripped down vibes.
Author: Justin Gage
The Dave Pike Set :: Infra-Red
The Detroit-born vibraphonist and marimba player Dave Pike was a veteran of flautist Herbie Mann’s early 60s soul jazz groups, and a leader who had recorded with Bill Evans, Reggie Workman and Herbie Hancock, when he decamped for Europe in the late 1960s. There he hooked up with stellar guitarist Volker Kriegel, bassist J.A. Rettenbacher, and drummer Peter Baumeister to form the short-lived Dave Pike Set and record for the adventurous German MPS Records label. The Pike Set’s recently reissued third album Infra-Red from 1970 reveals a psychedelic groove band as capable of trippy flights as they were funky breakdowns.
The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, Channel 35)
Jazz grip. Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.
34.1090° N, 118.2334° W
Mogwai :: The Bad Fire
Mogwai’s 11th album takes another sludgy trudge through ambient beauty, delineating radiant architectures of synth and kicking them into gear with a jet-engine roar. They’re still world champions at WTF song titles, offering up “Pale Vegan Hip Pain” and the Philip K. Dick-referencing “If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others” this time, among others, and still among the best at raising an anthemic, cathedral-vaulted ruckus. Producer John Congleton, an adept at infusing loud sounds with pristine clarity, captures plaintive ache and triumphant crescendo here, distilling Mogwai’s essence into its purest elements.
Lamentations: Twenty-Two Songs about John Coltrane
In the nearly six decades since his untimely passing, musicians from all over the world have never stopped honoring John Coltrane. And not just artists in the jazz tradition, those in rock, funk, prog and soul as well. We put together a compilation of twenty-two of our favorite tributes to the visionary saxophonist. In the extraordinary variety of ways musicians have chosen to honor him, you can see an outline of the magnitude of his impact on modern music.
Like A Corkscrew To My Heart: Blood On The Tracks Reimagined
As if to illustrate the neverendless aspect of Blood On The Tracks, Dylan has refused to let these songs settle into a final form; over the past half-century, he’s delighted in adding new verses, switching pronouns and perspectives, introducing new (sometimes very weird) arrangements. “Everything up to that point had been left unresolved,” he sings in “Shelter From The Storm.” And even in 2025, this is an album that still feels beautifully unresolved; you’ll hear it one way today and another way tomorrow. It’s open to interpretation — and interpretations are what we’ve got here, a re-imagining of Blood On The Tracks via some inspired covers. You may know every scene by heart, but there’s still more to discover.
Hemlock :: November
The 30-track collection November immerses listeners in process, allowing one to follow along as Carolina Chauffe jots down musical notes and sketches, some of them to be developed later, others not. We wrote about Hemlock’s 444 LP not too long ago, a sort of greatest hits constructed out of Chauffe’s daily songwriting devotion, but appreciate the diversions and half-successes and byways of this collection. Some days yield gemlike beauties, others not, but it is all about the journey.
Mt. Misery :: Love In Mind
If one yearns to take solace in a breezy, hypnotic collection of guitar pop, Love In Mind is the antidote. There’s a chiming whimsy reminiscent of Teenage Fanclub at their most melodic (such as the compositions of departed songwriter Gerard Love). Lyrically, the jovial and wide-eyed buoyancy of tracks like “Sunday Song” and “Waking Up” will specifically remind TFC heads of classic, Big Star-inspired efforts like Songs From Northern Britain. If the comparison seems too evident to ignore (or one to fellow Scottish legends Belle and Sebastian), the young band actually welcomes it like a badge of honor.
Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard :: January 2025
Freeform transmissions from Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard on dublab. Airing every third Sunday of the month, RFAD on dublab features the pairing of Tyler Wilcox’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb and Chad DePasquale’s New Happy Gathering. This month, Wilcox continues his annual January tradition of sharing a host of Neil Young rarities — outtakes, live recordings and more, spanning a half-century. Then, Chad delivers a an hour of psychedelic folk, ambient music & orchestral pop. Sunday, 4-6pm PT.
Big Bend :: Last Circle In A Slowdown
The third album from pianist/singer Nathan Phillips’ Big Bend project blends experimental methods with time-tested tradition. Working with avant-jazz master Shahzad Ismaily and a varied ensemble including Jen Powers of Rolin/Powers Duo and violinist Zosha Warpeha, Phillips transforms delicate folk songs into strange collages and elliptical ballads. At times reminiscent of the fluid, gauzy extrapolations of Talk Talk, Last Circle in a Slowdown might have more in common with Joan of Arc’s controversial ProTools workout The Gap. But Big Bend doesn’t embrace the alienation that comes with such studio manipulation and digital disruption, instead finding a lithe grace in the interstices of the regular and the revolutionary. Untroubled but eerie, Big Bend finds its own kind of ambiguous beauty.
Television :: CBGB, Early 1975
A hack Hollywood filmmaker would likely use cliched/corny smash cuts to convey the kinetic energy of NYC’s burgeoning mid-seventies punk scene. The tapes tell a different story, with history unspooling at a leisurely pace. These audience recordings of Television at CBGB during a long winter residency at the club — dangerously lo-fi, utterly priceless — are full of awkward tuning breaks, persistent amplifier hum, muttered introductions, cacophonous false starts, muted applause. Something’s happening here, but no one is quite sure what it is.
Nyron Higor :: S/T
Nyron Higor’s self-titled sophomore LP starts with a slow-motion frevo that drags amidst the reverb as if it was played inside a ghost motel. It is a perfect encapsulation of the Brazilian multi-instrumentalist’s new release: clouds of sonic niceties sculpted from the ruins of library music. Here, bird-like whistles and tremolos emerge into eerie atmospheres, from which they seem detached, like ground and figure.
The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, Channel 35)
Rolled chords. Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.
34.1090° N, 118.2334° W
Steven R. Smith :: Triecade
With his new album, Triecade, Los Angeles-based guitarist, artist and composer Steven R. Smith marks three decades of releasing music. Since his early days amidst the Jewelled Antler collective, Smith has put out some fifty records under half a dozen different monikers. Taken in its totality, his catalog comprises an almanac of forgotten countries, ruined cities and faded empires, a sketchbook of improbable flora and fauna. It is one of the most enchanting and labyrinthine discographies in modern American music.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy :: The Purple Bird
The Purple Bird is more overtly country than the last few Bonnie “Prince” Billy albums, certainly more so than the droning, mesmeric Lungfish homage in Hear the Children Sing the Evidence from 2024 or even the campfire folk communal Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You from 2023. Of course, threads of rural traditions in country, bluegrass and shape not singing have always woven through Oldham’s work, so it’s not a dramatic departure. Still, this is an album made in Nashville with Nashville musicians and a celebrated Nashville producer, and the twang factor is high.