Blanks And Postage: Psychedelic Futures

For this month's Blanks And Postage column, author Jesse Jarnow, explores the myriad worlds of psychedelic sci-fi pulp lit...and beyond . . .

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Transmissions :: Jeff Parker on Suite for Max Brown

As an integral member of Tortoise and an in-demand session player, guitarist Jeff Parker has become one of the most prominent names in the modern jazz vanguard. His new album Suite for Max Brown blends tasteful classicism with electronic and beat-indebted flourishes. Parker joins us to explore the album's varied palette and spiritual core . . .

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Aoife Nessa Frances :: Land of No Junction

Land of No Junction is Aoife Nessa Frances’ debut long-player, filled with softly psychedelic sound (fluttering mellotrons, dreamlike string arrangements, misty/mystical guitars) providing the perfect backdrop for Frances’ gorgeous melodies, quizzical lyrics and free-floating vocals . . .

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Hasten It, Hasten It :: On the Gentle Urgency of Bill Fay’s Countless Branches

Bill Fay's apocalyptic early albums made him a cult figure, but with Countless Branches, the third album in his comeback trilogy, the London songwriter offers another set of songs about how the passing of time can make us continually more human, ever open to love and unimagined possibilities . . .

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Magic Is Afoot :: Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Illuminations Samples and Remixes

Buffy Sainte-Marie’s 1969 album Illuminations is both an outlier of her discography and the era from which it emerged. On top of the feverish folk-rock that was becoming her trademark, its songs are pushed into truly groundbreaking territory by the electronic soundscaping of Buchla synth mastermind Michael Czajkowski . . .

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Smiles of Blood :: On Sound Baths, Liberation Through Hedgecraft, and the Healing Power of Righteous Heavy Music

Guest contributor Daniel Chamberlin, host of Inter-Dimensional Music, "North America's gnarliest mix of heavy mellow, kosmische slop, and void contemplation tactics," explores the nexus of heavy music and mindfulness, exploring the transcendental sounds of Bull of Apis Bronze, Evergreen Refuge, Woodsmoke, and Oneiromancer . . .

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The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, Channel 35)

Open rhythms. The Aquarium Drunkard Show. SIRIUS/XM radio ~ Channel 35. Wednesdays / 7pm California time + on-demand.

34.1090° N, 118.2334° W . . .

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Diversions: Jim Wallis, Beyond ‘Europa’

Ambient multi-instrumentalist Jim Wallis is set to release his debut full-length, Europa, at the end of the month via the London based Tip Top Recordings. An accompanying score to Rwandan director's Kivu Ruhorahoza's documentary film of the same name, we asked Wallis to walk us through some of the neo-classical, ambient and atmospheric works that bled into his sonic approach . . .

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Velvert Turner Group :: S/T 1972

... the reissue of the Velvert Turner Group's 1972 s/t debut, via Org music. At 10 tracks it's a funky heater of psychedelic soul, r&b and rock 'n roll. Turner, who as a teenager did time under the tutelage of Jimi Hendrix, pays tribute to the late luminary both explicitly (see: Hendrix's "Freedom") and aesthetically (see: literally everything else . . .

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Shout, Wail, & Murmur :: Translating Music’s Barbaric Yawps

We don't listen to music for precision—we listen for the moments raw humanity breaks through via sound. Guest contributor Matt Hanson reflects on the "barbaric yawps" that course through rock & roll, soul, and the blues . . .

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Shopping :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

For their latest, All Or Nothing, Shopping worked with producer Nick Sylvester to amp up the hedonism and beef up their often skeletal songs. In this interview we talked about the band’s new sleeker, synth-augmented sound, the balance of individual autonomy and group voice and why nobody in Shopping wants to be compared to your standard “starter-pack” of post-punk bands . . .

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The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, Channel 35)

Outré California. More tales from the pacific rim. The Aquarium Drunkard Show. SIRIUS/XM radio ~ Channel 35. Wednesdays / 7pm California time + on-demand . . .

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Swans :: Leaving Meaning

Michael Gira lived a thousand lives before Swans. He grew up in Los Angeles during the 1960s with absent parents. He was constantly snagged by the cops for misdemeanors, eventually winding up in Germany with his father to avoid any further heavy handed law enforcement. It was in Germany where he ditched his dad and wound up in Israeli jail a year later for selling hashish after hitchhiking across Europe with some hippies. He turned sixteen in a jail cell. When Gira saw punk rock for the first time back in L.A. it was massively influential experience . . .

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Lean Into the Cosmic Joke :: On The Trailblazing Norma Tanega

On December 29, 2019, folk singer Norma Tanega passed away at the age of 80. Here, writer Erin Osmon reflects on how Tanega embodied joy, wit, and freedom . . .

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Dave Whitaker and the Three Generation Rainbow

When a 20-year-old hippie-punk going by the name Sunfrog found his way from Detroit to the Nevada Test Site in 1988 to protest nuclear weapons, he did not anticipate meeting a Beat legend and Rainbow warrior like Diamond Dave Whitaker -- the man responsible for introducing a young Bob Dylan to both Jack Kerouac’s On The Road and Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glory . . .

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