Mac McCaughan – cosmic synth master?! Those aren’t words I expected to write about the Superchunk/Portastatic frontman in 2019, but here we are. New Rain Duets , his just-released collab LP with Mary […]
Search Results for: Mac McCaughan
Win Butler/Mac McCaughan :: The AD Interviews
Arcade Fire and Superchunk just played the Obama rally in North Carolina. Aquarium Drunkard was there. Below, J. Neas speaks with both Arcade Fire’s Win Butler and Superchunk/ Merge Records founder Mac McCaughan about the show, […]
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.
Return To Hot Chicken :: James McNew Reveals The Secrets Of Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One
If you had to pick one album that encompasses the awesomely eclectic nature of Yo La Tengo’s vision, 1997’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One is your best bet. It’s got it all (almost), careening from crunchy noise-pop to spacey ambient, from free-form experimentalism to delicate balladry, from homespun electronica to blown-out Beach Boys covers. Somehow, the band fits all these puzzle pieces together, creating a masterful whole. The double LP’s closer aside, this isn’t a little corner of the world, it’s an entire galaxy.
Destroyer :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Daniel Bejar has been making oblique, urbane pop symphonies as Destroyer for 13 albums and nearly three decades now, but Labyrinthitis is among his best. It pulses with dance rhythms, bristles with literate asides, unspools a hypnotic stream of film-like imagery, hazards a long, rap-inspired spoken word interval, and, once or twice, rocks unabashedly. It’s the kind of album, you can get lost in—or perhaps a little dizzy from. You don’t know quite what’s happening from moment to moment, but there’s a swirl and a sweep and an urgency to it that propels you ever forward.
Superchunk :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
For more than 30 years, Superchunk has made its wild, tuneful racket, hitching blistering guitar mayhem to graceful pop melodies. The band took a break in the aughts but has since caught a second wind, cranking out rollicking records that are imbued with wisdom.
The Aquarium Drunkard Guide To Three Lobed Recordings
Founded 20 years ago, North Carolina’s Three Lobed Records documents the psych-rock underground. There’s no signature Three Lobed sound or vibe — and that’s a very good thing. To celebrate 20 years of Three Lobed Recordings, we’ve pulled together a selection of noteworthy LPs from the label’s ever-expanding galaxy, with recommendations both from the Aquarium Drunkard crew and Three Lobed-related artists.
Transmissions :: A Conversation With Mary Lattimore
The music of Mary Lattimore is at once intimate and cosmic—her unfolding and widening harp epics connect outer expanses to inner realms. No matter the context, Lattimore’s musical voice resounds as a calming and clear one. Which is why, as the pandemic blues really kick in, Transmissions hosts Justin Gage and Jason P. Woodbury rang her up to discuss adjusting creative practices, dealing with daily anxieties, and narrow down which Succession character is least despicable.
Aquarium Drunkard :: 2019 Year In Review
Once again, our obligatory year-end review. The following is an unranked list of albums that caught, and kept, our attention in 2019.
Transmissions Podcast: Jason Mantzoukas/Remembering Sara Romweber/Low: On Double Negative
Our March podcast features in-depth interviews with Jason Mantzoukas (How Did This Get Made?), Low, and a remembrance of the late Sara Romweber of Let’s Active.
Laura Ballance :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Superchunk’s What a Time To Be Alive kicks off with a charging rush. “There’s a crooked line that runs through every crease in this map,” singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan seethes, singing over a […]
Unbelievable Things: The Story Of Superchunk’s Indoor Living
Superchunk’s 6th full-length Indoor Living is a beautiful and difficult record, one riddled with the anxiety of a vital, effervescent group beginning to fully wrestle with the inherent conflicts of productive adulthood juxtaposed against […]
Superchunk :: Majesty Shredding
When Portishead released Third in 2008, it had been nearly a decade since the release of their previous album. That’s a lifetime in the music industry and all sorts of […]
Superchunk :: Leaves In The Gutter
Really, could there be a better moment for new Superchunk sounds than during the 20th anniversary of the record label they founded? Not hardly. But it’s also been over seven years since the […]
Superchunk :: Foolish (Merge Records 1994)
Even with the most nebulously named of genres, there are still artists that leap to mind as vanguards and progenitors of the sound and image of that style. When it […]