Linda Smith started recording cassettes at home in the late 1980s, painstakingly writing out simple parts for voice, guitar, bass and percussion, laying them down on a four-track, dubbing them onto cassettes and selling them by mail order to a handful of admirers—many of them also DIY musicians. ow, following its 2021 compilation Till Another Time: 1988-1996, Captured Tracks has reissued Smith’s two exquisite mid-1990s cassette recordings, Nothing Else Matters and I So Liked Spring.
Category: The AD Interview
Nora Brown :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Nora Brown has been playing old time music since she was six years old. She came up in the folk scene surrounding the Jalopy Theatre, the headquarters of traditional music in New York City. Gearing up for a European tour this spring, she spoke with AD about the banjo, the vibes of old time music, listening to your elders.
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
During his 2020 live album Axiom, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (formerly known as Christian Scott aTunde) states that he and his band are “reevaluating what we’re playing and why.” The result of that process can be heard on 2023’s Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning. Dedicated to his grandfather Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr. of the Guardians of the Flame and his uncle, renowned saxophonist Big Chief Donald Harrison Jr. of the Congo Square Nation, the songs on are a change of direction for Chief Adjuah in terms of both sound and subject matter.
An Abstraction of Peculiar Experience :: Tom Lunt On William Eggleston
Tom Lunt on producing music by Memphis photographer William Eggleston and assorted collaborators: Brian Eno, Matana Roberts, Sam Amidon, and others.
Omni :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
On their fourth album, Souvenir, Atlanta’s Omni continue to find variations within a spartan approach to Southern U.S. post-punk. Recruiting drummer Chris Yonker (Hello Ocho), guest vocalist Izzy Glaudini (Automatic), and first-time producer Kristofer Sampson (The B-52s, Nashville Pussy), the trio’s hooky, minimalist songs are sharper than ever.
Itasca :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Kayla Cohen’s Itasca has grown over the last decade or so from a solitary acoustic pursuit into a full-band enterprise where pensive art folk kicks up a country rock ruckus. Her latest, Imitation of War, was conceived in the isolation of COVID out in California’s Yucca Valley but came to life in collaboration with long-time associates, Evan Backer on bass, Daniel Swire and Evan Burrows on drums, Robbie Cody producing and mixing.
“My past albums feel like growth experiences, but with this album I’ve gotten to a place where I still feel like it’s me, now, and we recorded it two years ago.”
Shirley Hurt :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
A recurring narrative runs throughout Shirley Hurt. It’s a catalog of recollections, some are challenging and others provide bursts of exuberance. She joins us to discuss it.
Robert Pollard :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
2023 was a fantastic year for Guided by Voices. The trio of records that came out – La La Land, Welshpool Frillies, and the late-year Nowhere to Go But Up – are some of the best the band has put out in the seven years its most recent incarnation has been together. Founding member Robert Pollard seems just as chaotically creative as ever, whether it’s the pure volume of songs or the developing shape they take. Over the holiday break, Pollard caught up with Aquarium Drunkard via email about the latest trio of albums, how the writing process works for the band 7 years and 16 albums in, the challenge of writing lyrics for music that already exists, and the transformative power of a Glen Campbell cover of your own work.
Thandi Ntuli :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Rainbow Revisited was recorded over the course of two sessions in 2019, between Ntuli’s grand 2018 epic Exiled and last year’s shimmering Blk Elijah & The Children of Meroë. An accomplished bandleader, Ntuli might never have recorded a collection of solo tracks had percussionist/producer/sorcerer Carlos Niño not reached out after seeing a video of her warming up.
Catching Up With Ilyas Ahmed
It’s been a busy couple of months for Ilyas Ahmed. First, Grails (the long-running band Ahmed joined a few years back) released the awesome Anches En Maat, which was quickly followed up by an extensive European tour. Then in October, the Portland, OR-based artist released his excellent new solo record, A Dream of Another. Recently, we hopped on the phone to get his thoughts on a variety of topics.
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.
Hardcore Iconoclastic :: Mark Lightcap on the Woozy Drifts of Acetone
Ahead of the career-spanning collection i’m still waiting. guitarist Mark Lightcap joins us to discuss the evolution and mythology of Acetone, his Southern California trio. “We’re just stirring this cauldron of musical information waiting for the flavor to congeal in a way that we like.”
Bex Burch :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
On her International Anthem debut There is only love and fear, xylophonist Bex Burch creates a world of sound that jumps between jazz loops, found sound, ambient soundscapes, and propulsive, rhythmic “messy minimalism.” But those individual components equal something more than the sum of their parts. Burch joins us to discuss the choice between love and fear, her “messy minimalism,” and welcoming the sounds of nature into her record—and realizing that her record was in and of itself a natural sound: “I am part of nature singing my song.”
Beirut :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
For Zach Condon, the music is a record of the transformative period he spent near the Arctic circle. He explains, “The whole album was supposed to sound like that place. The drums sounding like the outside elements and then the organ in the middle being like the warm fireplace that you get to sit by that keeps you warm through these harsh moments.”
Daniel Villarreal :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
We recently caught up with Daniel Villarreal backstage before his show at Yoshi’s in Oakland. His new album, Lados B, came out last month on International Anthem — its nine tracks drawn from sessions from his first album, Panama ‘77, a tribute to his homeland. A truly epic trio of Villarreal, guitarist Jeff Parker, and bassist Anna Butterss improvise around compositions originated by Villarreal, mostly live with minimal overdubbing.