Soul singer Eddie Chacon has spent years navigating the music industry. But on Pleasure, Joy and Happiness, his new album with John Carroll Kirby, Chacon sounds reborn as a cosmic R&B mystic. Here, he shares a playlist of some of the songs that inspired the lp and walks us along the many creative paths that led him here.
Category: The AD Interview
H.C. McEntire :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
On her second solo album Eno Axis, North Carolina’s H.C. McEntire sounds at peace. With her band luxuriating in gospel, soul, and country grooves behind her, her voice hovers above the down-home mix, buoyed by contentment. Inspired by time spent sinking into domestic routines and the blooming of a new relationship, the record feels like a cool breeze in this fiery summer. “I felt really centered in my body,” she says. “I was anchored down, I was in a great spiritual place. Everything about this record felt—I don’t want to say easy—but it had an ease to it.”
Sven Wunder :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Following Sven Wunder’s Lagniappe Session from July — with his interpretations of traditional Japanese songs — we had the opportunity to catch up with the enigmatic musician. Dig in as we discuss the ideas behind the beguiling project, including working under a pseudonym, the unexpected success of the albums, how Sweden funds music projects, how their musical journey became a learning experience, and the endlessly complicated debate over cultural appropriation.
Dirty Projectors :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
On the eve of the release of Dirty Projectors third EP this year, we caught up with Dave Longstreth to discuss the mosaic aspect of the EPs, the intense beauty of harmony, the band’s current line up, and the mighty influence of the great João Gilberto.
Unwelcome Jazz :: Jah Wobble Talks Bass, Brian Eno and 25 Years of “Spinner”
We’ve had 25 years to reflect on the strange, oscillating chasm of Eno/Wobble’s collaboration, which in many ways feels as relevant now as it did in 1995. The music feels as cold and mesmerizing as the surrounding atmosphere of the moon, its synthetic ripples swelling into great oceans of sound. Wobble brought a zealousness to Eno’s ambience, one that stirred a great fire in the belly of an ether otherwise shapeless and benign.
Tashi Dorji :: The AD Interview
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.
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.