Paris-based archival label We Want Sounds has become a house favorite, and their ongoing series of Akiko Yano reissues is one particularly sweet fruit to be pulled from that tree. Their sixth and most recent entry in the series came last year when they gave her third studio album, 1978’s To Ki Me Ki, its first ever release outside Japan.
Author: Justin Gage
Dark Canyon :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Long Days, Pleasant Nights is the sophomore album from Dark Canyon, the nom de plume of Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist/producer/engineer Mike Novak. We sat down with Novak to discuss writing and recording the album, becoming a new father, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower book series, and much more.
The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PDT, Channel 35)
Portico pacifico. 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
You Should Pay Rent In My Mind: Guy Picciotto | The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
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. To these ears it stands as a fulcrum which opened vistas in which the next records would further expand upon. Digging in, llyas Ahmed recently sat down with band member Guy Picciotto for a wide ranging talk about the album.
The Hard Quartet :: S/T
The playing is great. The lyrics are knotty and evocative. The songs are distinct and individuated. But more than all that, what makes this self-titled effort so stirring is the joy that these four guys take in being and playing together. In short, this is no haphazard conjunction of people you’ve vaguely heard of. It is a meeting of giants who know and like and understand each other …
Les Rallizes Dénudés :: 屋根裏 YaneUra Oct. ’80
In the two years since Les Rallizes Dénudés began their campaign to officially release the recordings that have been stashed away in their sizeable archives, Takashi Mizutani’s famously enigmatic underground […]
Broadcast :: Distant Call – Collected Demos 2000-2006
Even funneled through the warbly quality of these 4-track relics, it begs the question: could the band have released a stripped down, psych-folk affair that worked as majestically as their spacey, electronic flourishes? These cuts envision that hypothetical quite clearly.
Videodrome :: The Reflecting Skin (1990)
The Reflecting Skin looks at explosions of both the emotional and nuclear kind and the ghastly fallout they leave behind. As the film navigates the battlefield of youth and innocence—of false narratives confused for honest declarations, of skeleton-filled closets that no one wants to open—it poetically reminds audiences that the worst nightmares occur during waking hours, committed by flesh-and-blood beings in the glow of golden sunlight.
Bandcamping :: Autumn 2024
An autumnal soundtrack, filled with ambient jazz, cosmic drifts, adventurous improvisatory situations and one hell of a Sonic Youth cover. Fill up your Bandcamp (or other digital service) cart and watch the leaves start to fall.
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.
The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PDT, Channel 35)
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
Adeline Hotel :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Proving to be a restless sonic chameleon, Adeline Hotel (the moniker of multi-instrumentalist Dan Knishkowy) never makes the same record twice. Inspired by the likes of Jim O’Rourke’s transmuting discography, Adeline Hotel’s recent records range from fingerpicking guitar, jazz-tinged atmospheric compositions, and orchestral art pop. With nods to the likes of Gillian Welch and John Martyn, his latest, Whodunnit, is a kaleidoscopic autumnal tapestry that brings Knishkowy’s precise lyrical talents to the forefront.
Prairiewolf :: Deep Time
As Prairiewolf explores how to play together, only the Korg remains apart, it’s programmed beat as distinct and inexorably alien as ever. At a time when computers have begun to usurp the few remaining vestiges of the human, it’s good to hear a machine that knows its place.
Country In The Clouds: Cosmic American Music From The Jesus People Movement
Following in the footsteps of the “End Is At Hand” mixtapes, “Country In The Clouds” digs into music from the 60’s & 70’s Jesus People movement, but this time with a focus on the cosmic country side of the niche subculture. Like holy hippies baptized in the Bakersfield sound, earnest vocals, far out lyrics, and waves of pedal steel beckon listeners to tune in and take the Jesus trip…
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds :: Wild God
Nick Cave wrestles with the darkest parts of the human experience in Wild God, churning up doubt and fear and grief and blasphemy from the muck at the bottom and distilling it, somehow, into transcending clarity. A meditation on humankind’s first crime—the murder of Abel—turns into a rhapsody over frogs jumping up in the rain.