The latest Wet Tuna LP is called Vast — and you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a better title for this collection of strange and funky flights. It’s a wide-open, far-flung album, deeply textured and ridiculously detailed, but somehow spacious and inviting. A psychedelic micro-galaxy/macro-dose that teems with life and imagination. Close to a decade in, this is the fourth proper Wet Tuna offering (not counting an array of more “under-the-counter” situations), but the project is just another whistle-stop on the Matt Valentine express.
Category: The AD Interview
Bill Frisell :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
For Bill Frisell, music at its best feels dreamlike. It bends and manipulates time, contracting and expanding. On his latest, In My Dreams the guitarist is joined by longtime collaborators for a spectral set of tunes, including a sterling cover of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan.” He joins us to discuss the record, dreams, and Gary Larson’s The Far Side.
Ron Carter :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
In more than a half-century of activity, the legendary bassist has played with nearly everyone in jazz, from cult heroes to celebrated titans to forgotten mavericks. but longevity and dedication as a sideman, along with his stint in Miles Davis’ fabled Second Great Quintet, tend to obscure his many other major accomplishments. For his Aquarium Drunkard Interview, Carter talked about the inspiration behind his latest project and his hardscrabble and illustrious past, and went into his philosophical outlook and practical methods. Breaking down music as an art, a profession and a discipline, Carter shows that a life spent keeping time has not prevented him from existing in the present moment.
Bill Callahan :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
My Days of 58 is the latest record from singer-songwriter Bill Callahan. What does this record show? It is not only a document, but, as the title states, also an accounting of Callahan at a certain age, portraying who he is as a writer, a musician, a father, a partner, and a human being at a specific moment in time. He joins us to discuss a recent cancer scare, repetition, and visiting his musical heroes in his dreams.
Peter Stampfel :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Peter Stampfel’s Song Shards features a whopping 46 songs. Despite struggles with dysphonia, it’s clear the 87-year-old artist, Holy Modal Rounders founder, one-time Fugs member, and solo artist has no trouble gathering up material. He joined us to discuss the record, his spiritual practice, and reflect on artists like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Smith, and Irving Berlin.
Tucker Zimmerman: In Memoriam (1941-2026)
On January 17, 2026, the world lost the great Tucker Zimmerman and his wife of more than fifty years, Marie-Claire, to a house fire in Liege, Belgium. He was 84 years old. Though born in the United States, he had been a resident of Europe since 1966. A novelist, poet, folk singer, classical composer, & electronic musician, Zimmerman had a deep and restless career with more than a dozen albums to his name. However, because of his status as an expat, he was largely overlooked in his birth country for most of his lifetime.
The Sha La Das :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Sometimes a photograph can transport you back in time. On the cover of Your Picture, the second album from Staten Island soul combo The Sha La Das, appears a picture of the family matriarch, Linda. It was the same case with 2018’s Love in the Wind. The photos were taken by the 79-year-old Bill Schalda, who fronts The Sha La Das with his sons, Paul, Will and Carmine. Though aged by time, these images present a different world, but one that Schalda says feels as real and immediate to him as the present.
Wilder Maker :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Songwriter Gabriel Birnbaum’s latest with Wilder Maker, 2025’s The Streets Like Beds Still Warm, leans into sophisto-pop shaded indie pop noir, careening from rootsy swagger into bursts of digital space jazz and ambient funk. Birnbaum narrates like a streetwise-type who’s been up way too long, finding warped and engaging hooks around every corner. He joins us to discuss.
Adam Bhala Lough on Deepfaking Sam Altman
Adam Bhala Lough has made films about capricious characters. See his 2008 film The Upsetter: The Life & Music of “Lee” Scratch Perry, or his 2009 film about Lil Wayne, The Carter, or his 2023 HBO series Telemarketers, about the underbelly of the telemarketing industry. But his new film, Deepfaking Sam Altman, is his most experimental and unusual project yet. Aquarium Drunkard caught up with Bhala Lough to discuss the movie, AI’s potential and drawbacks, and why at the end of the day, we replace our humanity with efficient machinery at our own peril.
Jana Horn :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Over the last few years, and now three records, Jana Horn has quietly asserted herself as a songwriter of great merit amongst a vast and seemingly bottomless sea of artists also in search of answers through song. Her most recent LP, a self-titled work written during a period of transition in her life—notably a relocation to New York City having graduated from a writing program in the University of Virginia—captures movement not just in the physical sense of moving from one physical place to another, but of progressing the flow of her interior life.
Will Epstein :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Throughout his career, Will Epstein has amassed film scoring credits, including an IDA Documentary Award nomination for his score for Nam June Paik: Moon Is The Oldest TV (2023), by attuning to the micro-moments on screen and crafting the music to match them. So it comes as no surprise that, with the release of his latest lyrics-forward album Yeah, mostly (out on Fat Possum Records), he applies this focused attention as well, sourcing his imagery and subject matter from life’s small moments that may otherwise go unnoticed as a person goes on living.
It’s Common Knowledge I’ve Been Doin’ Alright: Dan Bejar on “Destroyer’s Rubies” at 20
Rubies is not always my favorite Destroyer record—that, like favorite Dylan, changes with the day; there is too much brilliance across too many records to firmly settle on one eternal favorite. It is, however, the best Destroyer record: consistent, nuanced, equal parts enervating and energizing. The album sounds effortless, as if these songs were always there, hovering unseen, waiting to be plucked out of the air and given form by Bejar and his murderous band of Vancouverites. Even after twenty years, I would not change a second. This is as close to perfect as rock records get.
Released two decades ago in February of 2006, we caught up with Bejar to discuss all of it …
Sessa :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
On the eve of releasing his third album Sergio Sayeg, aka Sessa, is finally feeling comfortable with the idea that this is what he does for a living. But it’s more complicated than that. He’s a Brazilian musician recording modern Brazilian music with strong vintage references for an American indie label. He’s one in a long line of Brazilian musicians with international audiences. With the birth of his son in 2022, he’s also a father and his priorities have flipped, challenging him to find new ways to tap into his creativity and grow as a musician while supporting a family. We catch up with Sergio to discuss the way Pequena Vertigem de Amor sounds different from his previous albums, from the instrumentation to the vocals and why he thinks it’s his best album yet.
Steve Tibbetts :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Close, guitarist Steve Tibbetts latest album, might be his most rewardingly mysterious yet. In conversation, Tibbetts balances consideration with openness, talking about his Buddhist practice, having lunch with Joe Boyd and Leo Kottke, working as a nurse and a record store clerk, the Grateful Dead, the wonders of fellow ECM artists and much more.
Liam Kazar :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
In the four years since the release of his debut record Due North, Liam Kazar hasn’t exactly been silent. Be it on stage or in the studio, his contributions to the sounds artists like Hannah Cohen, Sam Evian, Kevin Morby, and Jeff Tweedy are tasteful and distinct. You know you’ll be in safe hands when you see him on stage or in the credits. But this month saw the release of Pilot Light—a sophomore album that couldn’t be further from the stereotypical slump.