Welcome back to Transmissions. This week on the show, which brings our 2023 season to a close, we are joined by Matt Werth of RVNG to discuss the life and multi-dimensional sound worlds of Pauline Anna Strom. This month, the label released Echoes, Spaces, Lines, which collects the first three albums from the Bay Area synthesist and composer, as well as Oceans of Time, an unreleased record included in the box set for the first time.
Author: Justin Gage
Airto & Flora – A Celebration: 60 Years – Sounds, Dreams & Other Stories
There’s an embarrassment of riches to be found on Airto & Flora – A Celebration: 60 Years – Sounds, Dreams & Other Stories, the latest compilation from London’s always dazzling BBE label, this time documenting the work of Brazilian jazz power couple Airto Moreira and Flora Purim. Compiling thirty tracks across just about as many years (1964 through 1996) from the various solo and collaborating outings of the duo (now in their sixty-first year as union), the set examines their evolving alchemy of samba, bossa nova, jazz-fusion, and outré-funk excursions.
Jerry Garcia & Merl Saunders :: KSAN From The Record Plant | July 8, 1973
FM radio broadcast at the Record Plant in Sausalito, CA. July 8, 1973. KSAN-FM, San Francisco, CA.
Jerry Garcia – electric guitar, vocals. Merl Saunders – keyboards. John Kahn – electric bass. Bill Vitt – drums.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Cactus Lee (Second Session)
On the heels of his superb new album, Caravan, Cactus Lee’s Kevin Dehan returns for his second Lagniappe Session fresh in the air of a newer, bigger, more boogieing climate. On this outing, Dehan and some sacred personnel lay their slick, soulful style down on renditions of the glossy, top ten pop of mid-80’s Christine McVie, Butthole Surfers’ absurdist punk, and a rootsy glam-jam from the Dead.
Joshua Van Tassel :: The Recently Beautiful
Languid melodies weave in and out of piano figures, a lush but minimal sound. The music billows out in an organic way, phrase leading to phrase, one long vibrating note spilling into the next without the guardrails of rhythm or measure. That’s maybe a surprise when you consider that Joshua van Tassell is a drummer by trade. His solo work, however, is lithe and open-ended, a nocturnal conversation between piano and strings.
The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, 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
Videodrome :: American Movie (1999)
In its examination of aspirations, complacency, and the fine line between talent and persistence, few documentaries have come close to capturing the pursuit of artistic ambitions with as much raw sincerity as American Movie.
Transmissions :: Penelope Spheeris
This week on the show, Transmissions host Jason P. Woodbury joins Penelope Spheeris, director of The Decline of Western Civilization trilogy, The Beverly Hillbillies, Little Rascals, Suburbia, and Wayne’s World. Spheeris is the host of Peter and the Acid King, a true crime podcast set in the Los Angeles punk scene of the early ‘80s concerning the unsolved murder of Peter Ivers, host of New Wave Theater.
David Grisman :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Mandolin legend David Grisman spoke with AD about jazz, mandolin, his long partnership with Jerry Garcia, when Bob Dylan hit him up for lessons, and the new edition of the Garcia/Grisman jazz collection, So What, on vinyl for the first time.
Leo Takami :: Next Door
Leo Takami first hit our radar with his 2020 album, Felis Catus and Silence, a beacon of light in a potently dark year, shaping Windham Hill-inspired guitar compositions with elements of jazz, minimalism, classical music, Japanese gagaku, and ambient textures. The Tokyo-based composer and guitarist’s follow up arrives with Next Door, an album that once again finds Takami handling all the controls himself, creating his own fantastical dreamscapes and, this time, leaning a little more into easy listening and lounge.
Happy Thanksgiving :: Doug Sahm And Friends – Austin, TX 1972
Tradition runs rampant around Thanksgiving: generations of old recipes, football, Alice’s Restaurant, and, of course, a parade of balloons shutting down NYC. What else do you need? If you thought you were covered in the Thanksgiving tradition department, we did too…until a few years ago, when someone blew the dust off a long lost tape — Doug Sahm’s Thanksgiving Jam.
John Fahey: “Voice of the Turtle,” America’s First Composer, and Other Excursions
… though John Fahey would employ a similar strategy on America’s second side (after a dose of fretboard gymnastics on “The Waltz that Carried Us Away” and “Knoxville Blues”), with “Mark 1:15,” it is “Voice of the Turtle” that comes across as the true pivot point for the guitarist as a composer. And it was just that, which he was becoming. From revivalist interpreter, to experimenter, to composer of, perhaps, the most fundamentally American works.
Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard :: November 2023
It’s time for another installment of Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard on dublab, four hours of sounds from AD selectors and friends. Up first, Chad DePasquale shares The New Happy Gathering Holiday Special: crunchy leaf folk, woolen country, and a palm wine-jazz cocktail. Then, Jason P. Woodbury concludes Range and Basin with a longform instrumental drift, encompassing digital soundtrack jazz, lunar epics, and synths. Then, Tyler Wilcox shares a special Doom and Gloom from the Tomb, featuring tunes heard in his CD-focused Bonus Tracks column. And to close, Gabriel Birnbaum shares a broadcast of his Foxy Digitalis Mix.
Gram Parsons and The Fallen Angels :: The Last Roundup
We complained in a Bonus Tracks column a few months back about the Gram Parsons archive series, which had kicked off with a Vol. 1 way back in 2007, leaving us hanging for Vol. 2. Someone must have heard our prayers for more unreleased Parsons. The Last Roundup offers an unearthed soundboard tape of Gram and his short-lived Fallen Angels band playing Philadelphia’s Bijou Café in the spring of 1973. The recording comes from just a few days after the Fallen Angels’ previous/posthumous live LP, so there’s quite a bit of overlap here — but no one’s going to complain, considering the dearth of pro tapes from Parsons’ all-too-brief solo era.
Rubber Band Gun :: Shut Up and Deal
Shut Up and Deal is the latest from Rubber Band Gun, the solo vehicle of musician, sound engineer and producer Kevin Basko. Recorded in his own studio, Historic New Jersey, the album’s soundscapes weave a double image that evokes the careless whimsy of a Vegas casino—but also said establishments shadowy corner booths. The album
art—hand-painted by John Andrews—mirrors that atmosphere, featuring two grinning jokers holding up either side of a signature RBG playing card.