Welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions with Jason P. Woodbury. We’re kicking off our 2024 season with two very special guests: Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy, discussing their love of and tribute to R.E.M.’s Murmur. Plus: Lou Reed, Sunny Day Real Estate, and best of all, Michael’s run in with Bob Dylan.
Author: Justin Gage
Penza Penza :: Electricolorized
Electricolorized is a decidedly slinkier affair than its stomping predecessor, Neanderthal Rock. Panfilov still scribbles with his sub-basement guitar fuzz, but elements of easy listening, 60s French chanson, Joe Meek sound effects and tasteful David Axelrod-style jazz-funk are slipping into the mix. Still, Penza’s ultra-tight rhythm section never ceases to bounce.
Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer :: The Closest Thing to Silence
Avant-new age pioneer Ariel Kalma joins up with younger explorers Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer for The Closest Thing to Silence, a kind of metaphysical journey through the elder electronic musician’s oeuvre.
Träd, Gräs och Stenar: A Collective History
The greatest rock doc never filmed, Träd, Gräs och Stenar: A Collective History chronicles the continual evolution and rebirth of Sweden’s hard jamming ambassadors of free-range psych. Part art book, part oral history, the book puts you smack in the thick of TGoS’ heyday, as testimony from group members and close associates comprise a vivid composite portrait of the collective’s life in the Swedish underground and beyond.
Cowboy Sadness :: Selected Jambient Works, Vol. 1
Cowboy Sadness is comprised of guitarist Peter Silberman of The Antlers, drummer Nicholas Principe of Port St. Willow, and keyboardist David Moore of Bing & Ruth (and his recent, well-received collaboration with Steve Gunn). I can’t shake the feeling that this is, at least in part, a piss-take. Cowboy Sadness is a hilariously on-the-nose name for an ambient country project, and an implicit skewering of a genre that sometimes gets a little cheerless in its high lonesome drift. Titling their debut Selected Jambient Works, Vol. 1 makes it, somehow, even funnier.
And naming tracks “First Rodeo” and “Second Rodeo” seems like even more winking, since this is hardly the first rodeo (or second, for that matter) for the New York indie lifers that make up the outfit.
An Abstraction of Peculiar Experience :: Tom Lunt On William Eggleston
Tom Lunt on producing music by Memphis photographer William Eggleston and assorted collaborators: Brian Eno, Matana Roberts, Sam Amidon, and others.
Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han OH, Tyshawn Sorey :: Compassion
Get pianist Vijay Iyer in a trio and just see what happens. On last year’s visionary Love in Exile, he explored psychic heights and chasm-deep spaces with vocalist Arooj Aftab and bassist and electronics wizard Shahzad Ismaily. And now, “Compassion,” the lithe title track from his forthcoming ECM outing with bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey.
Manuel Göttsching & Michael Hoenig :: Early Water
A long-lost rehearsal tape for a 1976 tour that never happened, Göttsching and Hoenig’s Early Water occupies a special place in the Ash Ra mythology. When so much of the Berlin space music scene was opting for massiveness, Göttsching and Hoenig recorded a beautiful, liquid jam of buoyancy and light.
Yohei :: Echo You Know
Legendary musician Makoto Kubota describes Echo You Know as a “sound postcard from Los Angeles”, adding that he’d like to hear Yohei to produce the Beach Boys. Co-released by Japan’s Think! Records and his own fresh Passing By imprint, the record is the most fully realized effort of multi-instrumentalist Yohei Shikano.
Fur Trader :: Exit Signs
Recalling the jangly bittersweetness of Elliott Smith and Jon Brion, the latest single from Los Angeles-based Fur Trader is an introspective ode to doubt and uncertainty, as instantly catchy as it is contemplative.
Anna Ahnlund :: Omnejd
A reminder that in a world of beautiful sounds, jewels can be discovered at any point. In the ten years since its release, Anna Ahnlund’s Omnejd has seemingly been a lost opus standing with the best of the freak-inclined folk world. With a host of perceived influences running the gauntlet from Vashti Bunyan to Andrew Bird to Devendra Barnhart, and accolades in her home Sweden, it must be some sort of oversight that this record has remained aloof for so long.
Rei Harakami :: Wide World And Narrow World
The Hiroshima-born electronic music producer Rei Harakami recorded six albums of long-form, abstract ambience between 1998 and 2011, before passing away suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of forty. He left behind a singular body of work—a submerged sound of delayed, downtempo techno and reverb-laden, leftfield electronic dance music—and even a handful of records with Akiko Yano. Immersed in film and animation as well, Harakami’s creative pursuits proved boundless, as seen via a recent survey of some early homemade recordings, which encapsulate a sojourner of sound at play with the infinite.
Neil Young :: Honey Slides 2024
Neil Young kept promising us that Archives Vol. 3 was coming in 2023 … but guess what? It was delayed. That’s OK, any Neil fan worth his/her/their salt is accustomed to the waiting game. And anyway, there was plenty to keep us occupied last year in Shakeyland — a return to touring (and subsequent live album); several”officialbootleg” releases; and ongoing shenanigans on the wild/wooly Archives website. This fourth annual Honey Slides mix gathers up some choice rarities that Neil has sprinkled throughout his site, alongside several cuts that have yet to see the official light of day. As always, a few honey slides won’t hurt.
Videodrome :: Rollerball (1975)
Rollerball’s current reevaluation is mainly due to its prophetic look at the future — a future that doesn’t seem too far off from where we may be headed, sans roller-skates and leather pants.
Gerycz Powers Rolin :: Activator
Whether Gerycz Powers Rolin are a band or simply a semi-annual happening, they have already staked a claim to the legacy of the great free rock ensembles of the turn of the millennium: Pelt and Jackie-O Motherfucker—or even their Aussie cousins in the Dirty Three. Three albums in, and they continue to make works that fuse folk forms with new age revery and minimalist heft. Whenever you find yourself down on the United States, just remember they are still making ecstatic music in Ohio.