Released in 1995, An Oscar Peterson Christmas finds the seventy-year-old jazz veteran comfortably gliding through fourteen Christmas standards. It’s cozy, warm, and familiar — everything one could hope for from a jazz record to soundtrack the holiday season . . .
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2024 Year In Review especial. Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.
34.1090° N, 118.2334° W . . .
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The Louisiana-born, Portland-based soul singer Ural Thomas comes across like the pastor of a titillating, subterranean sermon on “First Place Winner,” a dimly-lit slice of lo-fi bedroom funk culled from Mississippi Records’ forthcoming Nat-Ural, which compiles ten 8-track home recordings made between the late 80s and early 90s. Over frosty synths and clapping drum machines, his voice is distant, faded, and downright spectral . . .
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Can any year-end list be definitive? With so much music being released every single day—from marquee names to DIY home recorders to all points in between—it's impossible to truly keep up with it all. But the idea with our lists has never been to say "here's everything worth paying attention to." Rather, this is our humble attempt at casting a wide net and reeling in as much of the good shit as possible . . .
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The context one can draw between the seven musicians involved in this project is a universe of interloping histories. Percussionists Tatsuhisa Yamamoto and Joe Talia have been involved with a handful of impromptu improvisational groups, sometimes including players like Ned Collette, Senyawa, and Akira Sakata, while both have notched a solo album for the ever-expanding Black Truffle catalog. German kraut four-piece Von Spar have penned over ten albums with a league of guest contributors including R. Stevie Moore, Laetitia Sadier, and Stephen Malkmus who they released an entire Ege Bamyasi cover album a decade ago . . .
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Hailing from Music City, USA, Styrofoam Winos are Lou Turner, Joe Kenkel and Trevor Nikrant. Following up one of our favorite albums of 2024, the Winos return this month with their debut Lagniappe Session. With four covers as eclectic and malleable as their collective influences, the trio lean into the Roches' 1979 s/t cult classic, the wonder that is “Blue” Gene Tyranny, peak and primal Exene Cervenka, and a cut via Link Wray's inestimable 3-Track Shack era . . .
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Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.
34.1090° N, 118.2334° W . . .
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Carolina Chauffe has written a song-a-day for one month out of each year for the past six years. It’s the kind of discipline that would force an artist to live in the moment, to not think too hard whether any particular tune was good enough, to capture an effervescent flow of ideas and images and melodic progressions that might otherwise get away. Their latest album, 444, compiles the best of these phone-recorded compositions and the fresh, lively aura that surrounds songs that come unmediated out of the inspirational ether . . .
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“Strumming in opposition to the towers.” Tashi Dorji strums his guitar with raw, primal abandon and absolute intention. The strings may clang and buzz but the notes are given room to linger, pausing for reflection, space, and understanding. On We Will Be Wherever The Fires Are Lit, the latest album from the Asheville-based Bhutanese guitarist, Dorji renders ten improvised acoustic pieces, his winding and mesmerizing works played with a conviction that feels weighted and true, even as they wander into swathes of uncertainty . . .
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In late July of 1978, the Sun Ra Arkestra rolled into Baltimore’s Famous Ballroom in a concert put on by Left Bank Jazz Society. A long running institution, the Left Bank normally hired acoustic bop musicians like Sonny Stitt, Freddie Hubbard, and Joe Henderson. So bringing on Sun Ra was something of a risky move: not only was he electric, he was a bit of an outside musician too. Would the bluebloods of Baltimore enjoy it . . .
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As 2024 draws to a close, the darkness encroaches … in more ways than one! Some welcome light can be found in the following recommended records. Bandcamp Friday hits again on December 6, but wherever you get your music, make sure your cash is making its way to the artists — we need their work now more than ever . . .
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The Ladybug Transistor released The Albemarle Sound in the spring of 1999, but it sounded pretty much timeless upon arrival. A quarter-century later, the LP’s glow remains undimmed — it’s a jewel-box of lush strings, classic pop melodies and delicious rainy-day melancholy, a Wes Anderson soundtrack in search of a film . . .
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Dave Schools of Widespread Panic joins us to discuss the legend of Phil Lesh, helping us understand just how profound of an influence he has had on not just contemporary music culture, but the evolution of human consciousness and sound as a whole . . .
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A formidable player then and now, James Blackshaw was considered a fitting heir to first wave Takoma artists like John Fahey and Robbie Basho. Following an extended break from performance in 2016, Blackshaw returns this month with a new album, Unraveling in Your Hands. It includes just two tracks. The title cut is one nearly half-hour composition for solo guitar, while “Dexter,” much shorter, includes string and wind arrangements by Charlotte Glasson, an in-demand session player, film soundtrack contributor and member of the Lost and Found Orchestra . . .
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The last installment in the Can live archival series continues to explore the unfairly maligned late period of the pioneering German band. Recorded at Keele University in 1977, it finds former bassist Holger Czukay settling into his new role as effects wizard, with replacement bassist Rosko Gee, also of Traffic, upping the funk quotient for long, elaborate improvisations and sometimes surprisingly industrial pieces. As with the other entries in the series, it shows a group committed to exploding their sound, exploring the outer limits and creating new worlds, for as long and as far as they could go . . .
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