Castle Dogs is a sixty minute slow boil of post-punk and new/no-wave, mixed live from Uncle Tio’s collection and dubbed to tape exclusively for Aquarium Drunkard. Each tape features exclusive artwork and an instant photo of the tracklist. Play at full volume.
We are giving away six copies of the cassette via the AD instagram…head over there to land one. Actual dogs not included.
In 2017 Aquarium Drunkard brought you Christmas Jambree: A Vintage Jamaican Yuletide Mixtape. At 28 tracks it’s an extensive collection of Jamaican reggae and ska Christmas tunes. If you’ve never heard it, do slide over there right now, but if you’re already converted, and looking for a bit more in that vein, the following companion has you covered. Dig in, dig deep, and happy holidays.
Autumn Hymnal: 23 tracks of jazz, folk and ambient suited to navigate these changes–from the celebratory catharsis of Tim Buckley, to the mournful acceptance of Anne Briggs, to the haunting beauty of Jessica Pratt. Put on your favorite sweater, pour something warm and enjoy the ride.
Matthew Specktor’s Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, & Los Angeles, California blends “autobiographical vignettes and incisive cultural deep dives.” Today, the author joins us with a companion mixtape of songs that helped inspire the book.
The following mix is a tribute to the brilliant–sometimes misunderstood–artist, featuring a selection of albums under Brooks’ own name, as well as crucial collaborations. It ends with a blistering version of Woody Shaw’s composition, “Zoltan,” taken from the exceptional new collection, Understanding.
Imminent summer approaches as we check in with with Monster Rally, whose “Imaginary Palms” drops later this week — a balmy dreamscape framed by harps, water, live drums, air and maracas.
This, our third mix collaboration [following Volume I (2012), and Volume II (2013)], finds Monster Rally’s Ted Feighan pulling from an appropriately humid crate. Press play, get lifted.
Snapping at the heels of last year’s Eastern Flowers and Wabi Sabi lps, prolific polymath Sven Wunder returns this June with his third full-lengh, Natura Morta. In anticipation, Wunder recorded the following vinyl mix for AD, via his home studio in Sweden, leaning into aesthetic influences and inspiration.
Because it’s only getting hotter… our hermano in sound Mathieu Schreyer’s all-vinyl set from last May. All fire, via the Radio Free archives, previously solely available via our Patreon. Only the good shit.
For this Unearthed bootleg mix we’re digging into our decades-spanning stash of unreleased demo tapes. Some of them are exceedingly rough, still searching for the song. Others are fully formed, the finish line in view. Some are recorded straight to a boom box at home, others in a tricked out Hollywood studio….
Presenting Heaven on Earth, a four-hour (!) Kevin Ayers megamix by David Mittleman of Observations of Deviance, a weekly “all-vinyl, freeform program that harkens back to the early days of underground FM radio.”
Roots reggae is the music of the Rastafarian tradition. It speaks to the spiritual, political, and socially conscious message of God, called Jah by Rastafarians.
Press play for a celebration of roots stylings including the traditional, digital, and dub.
Consider this one a sequel to the Unearthed series’ two other Bay Area bootleg deep dives — Sausalito Haze and Pacific High. The Boarding House, located at 960 Bush Street in San Francisco, had a good run in the 1970s as one of the city’s premiere nightclubs, presenting a killer mix of music and comedy (such stars as Robin Williams and Steve Martin had early successes here) seven nights a week, in a very intimate setting. For this mix, we’ve gathered together a typically eclectic blend of folk, reggae, jazz, country, punk and rock, all recorded live at the Boarding House.
Sonhos Secretos, or Secret Dreams in English, alludes to the quiet aspirations of those that made these independent and privately released recordings as well as to the fact that many of these tracks have long remained essentially a secret. It’s also, to some extent, a reference to a certain dream-like quality that permeates this collection.
With live music still iffy this year, let’s travel back to some long-ago summers in New York City’s Central Park. For the 12th edition of the Unearthed bootleg mix series, we’re training our ears on Wollman Skating Rink, which hosted some truly stellar al fresco concerts back in the day. These performances span from the late 1960s to the early 1980s and encompass a wide range of freaky fresh air jams: dark funk jazz, ecstatic post-punk, prog epics, Texas boogie — it’s all here
In celebration of what would’ve been the deeply-missed Trish Keenan’s 52 birthday, Aquarium Drunkard presents a survey of rare Broadcast material pulled from a variety of lesser-known sources. Not touching on any of their collaborations, inventive remixes, nor live material (save for a Nico cover from a 2003 Peel Session), Sentimental Ornament finds the inimitable group at the most experimental edges of their galaxy.