Drop in. 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
Author: Justin Gage
Ava Mendoza :: The Circular Train
You might have spotted Ava Mendoza on Bill Orcutt’s Four Guitars tour earlier this year, a meeting of four exceptional players of diverse backgrounds: Wendy Eisenberg from jazz and art song experiment, Shane Parrish from the finger-picked blues-drone world, the unclassifiable Orcutt, and Mendoza, a bold expander of the electric blues rock universe. She’s played with everyone—William Parker, Nels Cline, Matana Roberts, and Fred Frith among others—and led free-jazz, noise-rock, blues-encrusted Unnatural Ways through two albums, blending McLaughlin and Son House-ish textures. The Circular Train expands on this syncretic vision, building towering edifices of guitar tone and setting them to flames.
Allen Lowe and the Constant Sorry Orchestra: Louis Armstrong’s America, Vols. 1 and 2
In a massive four-CD set, Allen Lowe and his adventurous ensemble conjure an alternate past while exploring real history. Their tribute to Louis Armstrong, the country he grew up in and the worlds he created employs a wealth of traditions and styles, from Dixieland to fusion. A sprawling, eccentric mix of contradictions, confluences and celebrations, it rewrites the past and charts a weird vision for the future.
The Cure :: Songs of A Lost World
Robert Smith never aimed to create the definitive soundtrack for our current dystopian moment, but he may have done it anyway. The argument against? He wrote some of these songs more than a decade ago and has been playing them off and on at shows for nearly as long. But despite the temporal disjunction, if you’re looking for some way through early November 2024, bleak, magisterial Songs of a Lost World makes an ideal companion. It is wise, spiritually charged and not at all bent on insisting that “we’ll get through this” or “things will get better.”
Anthony Moore :: Home Of The Demo
Home of the Demo comes from a quiet period in Anthony Moore’s eventful musical life. The avant-garde keyboardist and composer’s art-pop-cabaret project Slapp Happy had run aground, after moving from Berlin to London and collaborating with Henry Cow for two albums. Virgin Records released his first solo album Out (1976) but passed on the subsequent ones, Flying Doesn’t Help (1979) and World Service (1981), both issued on independents.
The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, Channel 35)
Seed of memory. 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
Limbo District :: Carnival
Limbo District made its own rules. The Athens, Georgia post-punk outfit spliced hammering Afro-centric rhythms to Weimar cabaret decadence in theatrical performances that pushed late 1970s gender norms to the breaking point. They were out and gay before almost anyone, creative in a variety of artistic disciplines and an inspiration to a whole generation of wild, weird Athenians: Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Keith Strickland of the B-52s and members of Pylon.
Helen Merrill :: S/T (1955)
For the latest entry into our ‘Midnite Jazz’ series, we take a trip back to Manhattan circa 1954 and find a twenty-one-year-old Quincy Jones embarking on his first studio gig as an arranger for Helen Merrill’s eponymous debut album.
Rogê :: Curyman II
Rogê is steeped in bossa nova tradition, building lush, rhythmically restless compositions that are light as air but resonant with feeling. Here in his second U.S. released solo album, the Brazilian native now living in LA, pays tribute to the genre’s masters, covering João Donato’s “A Rã,” “A Força,” from his collaborative album with Seu Jorge and “Lendo Do Abaeté” a song made famous by Dorival Caymmi, while also taking the form in new directions with original material.
Mount Eerie :: Night Palace
Phil Elverum emerges from unimaginable loss in Night Palace, returning from relentless (and understandable) exploration of his own wrenching experiences to consider again the largeness of the natural world, the purpose of art and human transience. This larger scope extends not just through the lyrics, but into the sound of this double album, which throws off the limitations of poetic, minimalist, lyric-focused indie folk and dallies with rock, drone, free improv, country and black metal.
Tomin :: A Willed And Conscious Balance
As the electric keys of the “Untitled Dirge” minisuite kicks off A Willed and Conscious Balance, it’s evident that Tomin Perea-Chamblee’s shapeshifting palette expands upon his own woodwind arrangements, transmuting an orchestral symmetry with the record’s ensemble. It’s a record with an ever-evolving framework, conveying the essence of canonical free jazz entities with a set of signifiers that sounds ambivalently modern.
Bondo :: Harmonica
LA based post-rock quartet Bondo returns with their sophomore LP, Harmonica. Recorded live to tape by engineer and producer JooJoo Ashworth, Harmonica conveys an organic sensibility that only a live band can communicate. There is a tightness, a musical understanding through technique and dynamics with an added dimension of nuance – some improv, and the happy accidents that can only come from four people playing together live.
Barry Archie Johnson :: Fortune’s Mirror
Though he’s been playing for years, Fortune’s Mirror, released by the esteemed VDSQ imprint, is Barry Johnson’s proper instrumental debut, and has the distinction of possibly being the most “California” sounding solo guitar record to come out since Will Ackerman’s first few albums for Windham Hill.
The Aquarium Drunkard Show (The Halloween Edition)
Broadcasting from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery … The Aquarium Drunkard Show. The Halloween edition, Wednesday night / 7pm California time. SIRIUS/XM ~ Channel 35.
Lee Baggett :: Waves For A Begull
Existing in a dusty space between shambolic whimsy and rock solid songwriting, the experience of a Baggett record is one in which the stalwart musician crafts his own classic rock fantasy. Like an afternoon drive through a seaside beach town, Waves of a Begull delivers the washed out guitar rompers you need this year.