Tashi Dorji’s music exists in the now, the exact moment when it leaves his fingers. Playing is, for him, a kind of spiritual practice, as necessary as eating and breathing and just as instinctual. His latest album, Stateless, was recorded in about an hour and a half, Dorji laying down track after track, pausing only to retune in idiosyncratic ways between bouts of playing.
Category: The AD Interview
Fred Thomas :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Journeyman musician Fred Thomas joins Jesse Locke for a free ranging interview about his many projects, music writing, his recent trilogy of excellent, heartbreaking solo albums—All Are Saved, Changer, and Aftering, and his new moniker, Idle Ray. While just getting started, he’s already delivered some of the most moving songs of 2020 with more to come in the near future.
Gabriel Birnbaum :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
A conversation from last winter, had on the eve of Gabriel Birnbaum’s solo debut. Over some chili and beer, Birnbaum explains his heartworn highway experiences as a working musician; both as the frontman for Wilder Maker and a touring member of Debo Band.
Andrew Patterson On the Mythic Frequencies of The Vast of Night
Writer and director Andrew Patterson joins us to discuss his micro budget sci-fi gem The Vast of Night, a movie about two New Mexico teenagers who encounter a mysterious radio signal: “We made a movie about people being inquisitive and curious enough to accidentally get a glimpse of something rare and mysterious, something special.”
Julien Gasc :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
The music of French singer-songwriter, troubadour, and multi-instrumentalist Julien Gasc is a perennial gift. Shortly before the world locked down due to Covid-19, Gasc released his third LP, L’Appel de la Forêt. Both a stylistic break and continuation of his evolving muse, we asked our mutual friend Derek Wheeler James to catch up with Gasc, via phone at his home in Toulouse, to discuss the album’s aesthetic origins, and more.
Whit Dickey :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
On the surface, nothing about Whit Dickey’s decision to start his new record label, Tao Forms, makes much sense. It’s the drummer’s first time leading such a venture, and he’s doing so in his mid-60s, right around the time most impresarios are looking toward retirement. Too, he’s using Tao Forms as outlet for free jazz (his own as well as music by Mathew Shipp). Not the soundest of commercial moves—especially amid a global pandemic—but that has never seemed to be his concern.
Emotional Imagination :: Laraaji Discusses Sun Piano
Laraaji began his musical life at the piano and with his new lp, Sun Piano, he returns to it. He joined Aquarium Drunkard’s Jennifer Kelly to discuss his long musical career, laughter meditation, and the role that music can play in very difficult times.
Sonic Boom :: The AD Interview
Inspired in equal parts by some simple, monophonic jams on modular synths and his passion for living in harmony with the natural world, All Things Being Equal, is a brightly colored, buoyantly upbeat meditation on simplicity, tranquility and living lightly on the planet. Here Kember talks about his love of electronic instruments and ancient drones, his gorgeous natural surroundings in Sintra, Portugal, his long friendship with synthesizer pioneer Delia Darbyshire and his hopes for inspiring humanity for the steep climb ahead if we are to continue to live on a healthy planet earth.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith wrote her new album The Mosaic of Transformation as a spiritual process, trying to understand the mental blocks that made music, life, and everything else feel impossible. “This album was a tool for me to heal this mental block by finding a way to embody the music,” she explains.
Rose City Band :: The AD Interview
Ripley Johnson has carved out a niche in psychedelic drone and motorik repetition, helming Wooden Shjips, the long-running experiment in lysergic primitivism, and Moon Duo, likewise mind-expanding but slanted towards electronics. But a lifelong affection for classic rock and country and a newly reawakened appreciation for the seasons led him recently to form the new Rose City Band. A mostly solo endeavor despite the name, Rose City Band’s sophomore lp, Summerlong, employs lap steel and mandolin as well as the usual rock band instruments to create a warm, buoyant, sunny Saturday morning vibe.
Bill Nace :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
In May, Nace releases his first full-length studio album of solo material in Both, a riveting collection of long fractured drones, altered tones and insistent, nearly subliminal rhythms. Yet even though he’s the only player on the disc, the new record is still a collaboration. Bitchin Bajas’ Cooper Crain mixed and produced these tracks, playing an integral role in the way the finished product sounds.
Stephen Malkmus on Traditional Techniques: We’re Just Going To Wing It
For all its visionary put-ons, Stephen Malkmus’ Traditional Techniques hums with sincerity. Aquarium Drunkard caught up with Malkmus on a typical quarantine day to discuss the new record, punks finding their various freak flags, and the status of the upcoming Pavement reunion.
Catching Up With Avey Tare
As the world seemingly draws to a stop, Portner finds himself quarantined at home in Western North Carolina amidst work on Animal Collective’s eleventh studio album, the first album since 2012 to feature all four original band members.
It Has to Be About Need :: The Mysteries of Lucinda Williams’ Good Souls Better Angels
On the apocalyptic Good Souls Better Angels, Lucinda Williams grapples with pain, mortality, and the devil. She joins us to discuss the album’s apocalyptic themes, breaking with the familiar, and how she stays in touch with the sense of mystery that has always fueled her work.
Caleb Landry Jones :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
The Mother Stone is a collection of fifteen tracks entirely out of step with whatever modern trends are currently gripping independent music. It feels peerless, out of time, from a different dimension. It isn’t a record you can play quietly in the background as you respond to emails. It requires headphones. Focus. Attention. Which isn’t to say it isn’t any fun. Because it is.