Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan’s SQÜRL has been around for 14 years, but Silver Haze marks the duo’s long-player debut. They join us to discuss working with producer Randall Dunn, guests Charlotte Gainsbourg, Anika, and Marc Ribot, and the influence of poet John Ashbery.
Category: The AD Interview
Kahil El’Zabar: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Kahil El’Zabar has worked as a bandleader and collaborated with Pharaoh Sanders, Archie Shepp, and Dizzy Gillespie. With his latest album, Spirit Gatherer: A Tribute to Don Cherry, El’Zabar is once again joined by the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, with vocalist Dwight Trible of the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, and multi-instrumentalist and son of the album’s namesake, David Ornette Cherry. Celebrating jazz luminary Don Cherry, the album is beautiful in its spatial depth, brevity, and intimacy, three attributes clearly set upon with masterful intention.
Catching Up With Sleaford Mods
Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn join Aquarium Drunkard to discuss UK Grim, their latest collection of discontented electronic post punk anti-anthems. They share thoughts on working with Perry Farrell, online discourse, and their unlikely pop audience.
Lonnie Holley :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
On Lonnie Holley’s Oh Me Oh My, the visionary bluesman unearths surreal experiences in hallucinatory, stream of consciousness poetry, backed by feverish, impressionistic jazz, funk and gospel music. Jacknife Lee, the acclaimed Irish producer, assembled the musical backing and incorporated contributions from guest artists, giving Holley’s music a shimmering dreamlike depth. A diverse group of collaborators, including Moor Mother, Michael Stipe, Justin Vernon, Sharon van Etten and Rokia Koné added their voices to these revelatory songs. Today, he joins us to discuss.
Purling Hiss :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Mike Polizze’s acoustic album Long Lost Solace Find was one of 2020’s prettiest and most laid back folk rock recordings. But with Purling Hiss’ Drag On Girard, he resumed his assault on the ampflier with a blistered headlong brilliance. He joins us to discuss.
Doug Paisley :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
We caught up with Doug Paisley on a foggy January night at his home in Toronto. His new album Say What You Like, out March 17th on Outside Music, was recorded over the past few years, with selections pulled from his huge trove of songs in progress. “For me it’s all about recording these little ideas and then they just keep coming back,” Paisley said. “And there’s a question in them and then the answer is somewhere way down the road.”
Hermanos Gutiérrez :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Brothers Estevan and Alejandro Gutiérrez grew up in two words, splitting time between their father’s native Switzerland and Ecuador, where their mother’s family hailed from. But on El Bueno Y El Malo, the siblings evoke the sound of some sparse and sun-bleached desert. Hermanos Gutiérrez joined us to discuss their origins, filmic inspirations, how the desert influences their recordings, and share a new video for “Hermosa Drive.”
Dougie Poole :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Dougie Poole’s got a clear-eyed view of our modern moment and a country songwriter’s ability to sum it up in a perfect line. The songs on his 2020 album The Freelancer’s Blues concerned themselves with the ennui and indignity of urban 21st century work, life, and work-life – dead-end gig economy jobs, cross-country moves from one coast to another, and the yearning for a “Natural Touch” while cycling through futile first dates. Poole’s new album, The Rainbow Wheel Of Death, finds him doomscrolling even further, and just as before, he finds “troubles stacked like dishes / in a crooked pile.”
Death Valley Girls :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Death Valley Girls’ Islands in the Sky might look from the outside like a celestial new age outing, but it’s something else and all together unexpected: an old fashioned rock & roll album boasting consciousness boosting effects. Today at AD, Bonnie Bloomgarden of the band joins us for a discussion about the radical aspects of creativity.
Jenny O. :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Singer/songwriter Jenny O joins Aquarium Drunkard for a searching talk about Spectra, growing up in rock, jazz and classical music, learning to work within her own unique parameters and she’s through writing love songs and wants to dedicate the rest of her life to communicating about the climate.
Gina Birch (The Raincoats) :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
With their jittery harmonies and bounding rhythmic clangor, their insistence on doing it themselves, and their brash disregard of expectations, The Raincoats didn’t just talk about feminism: they enacted it. Nearly 20 years on after The Raincoats last album, founding member Gina Birch has made a solo album, I Play My Bass Loud, her first in a multi-decade career (unless you count a 1994 album by The Hangovers). We talk about her new record, her early days in squats, her love of reggae and the legacy of The Raincoats.
Jared Mattson :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Mattson 2 guitarist Jared Mattson joins us for a discussion about his solo debut Peanut, covering Ween and John Coltrane, inhaling tire rubber, and the underrated power of Andy Summers of The Police.
Steve Tilston :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Unsung Britfolk hero Steve Tilston joins us to discuss his sparse early ’70s gem An Acoustic Confusion, the influence of Bert Jansch, and that time John Lennon wrote him a letter…which he never received.
Andrew Broder :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Minneapolis-based producer and composer Andrew Broder joins us to discuss his soundtrack for Alan Moore’s dream-like detective movie The Show, plus his work with luminaries like MF Doom, Joe Rainey, Lambchop, and Alan Sparhawk and the late Mimi Parker of Low.
Old Fire :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
On John Mark Lapham’s second release under the moniker Old Fire Voids, the musician and filmmaker creates a sprawling and meditative odyssey through the darkest corners of the West Texas towns that continues to spark his imagination. A guest-filled journey with vocal and lyrical contributions by Bill Callahan, Adam Torres, Emily Cross and Julia Holter, Lapham pulls elements from post-rock, avant-country, spiritual jazz, and murky drones to soundtrack eroding structures that cast shadows in the desert for nefarious characters to hide.