Shigeru Izumiya :: Light & Shadow

Shigeru Izumiya lived many lives: underground folk singer, subversive poet, experimental filmmaker, Studio Ghibli voice actor, cyberpunk and J-pop pioneer, and eventually a tarento—the Japanese term for omnipresent television personalities. Because of that multiplicity, his work was often overlooked. But Light & Shadow (1973) remains one of the strangest records of the Japanese folk-rock era, filtering prostitution, child abandonment, and the spread of syphilis through cartoonish arrangements, theatrical declamations, and moments of perfect pop consciousness . . .

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Object Hours :: Solved by Walking

Driven by an unwavering pulse and two guitars that continually reshape the landscape around it, Object Hours' Solved by Walking binds its individual pieces into an inexorable forward march. What begins as muscular repetition gradually reveals unexpected beauty, carrying the listener from brute force to quiet transcendence . . .

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Nirosta Steel :: My Skyscraper

Nirosta Steel's MY SKYSCRAPER arrives with the kind of mythology reserved for impossible records. Featuring Arthur Russell throughout, it resurrects an alternate history of experimental pop—one that still sounds stranger, freer, and more adventurous than much of today's underground . . .

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You-On :: New Side

Few formats expose improvisers quite like piano and drums. On New Side, Jim White and Masami Tomihisa embrace that openness, conjuring eight spontaneous dialogues that drift between hushed lyricism, ecstatic clatter and moments of near-telepathic communion. An unlikely collaboration, New Side finds its own strange gravity . . .

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Bandcamping :: Summer 2026

A long, hot summer stretches out ahead of us. Whether you're chasing shade or the horizon, here's a stack of recent Bandcamp discoveries worth packing for the season. From ecstatic guitar minimalism and Fourth World obscurities to transportive ambient, jangle pop, and mystic folk, these are the records soundtracking our summer. Pour yourself an ice-cold lemonade and dig in . . .

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

Outré California. Broadcasting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.

SIRIUS 892: Intro – Jerry Garcia 1976 Interview ++ Grateful Dead – Nobody’s Fault But My Mine (Live, 1973) ++ Alex Chilton – Jumpin’ Jack Flash ++ Muddy Waters – She’s Alright ++ Howlin’ Wolf – Smokestack Lightning (1969 version) ++ Sandy Bull – No Deposit-No Return Blues (edit) ++ Band of Gypsys – Machine Gun ++ John Lee Hooker – 713 Blues ++ Jerry Garcia & Merle Saunders – Keepers ++ Funkadelic – I Wanna Know If It’s Good To You ++ Sly & The Family Stone – Just Like A Baby ++ Pippo Caruso – Riff (Porca Società) ++ The Brothers Rap – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised ++ East of Underground – Smiling Faces ++ Chubby Checker – Goodbye Victoria ++ Buddy Miles – Down By The River ++ Lee Moses – Hey Joe ++ Tony Owens – I Got Soul ++ Sister Gertrude Morgan – Let Us Make A Record ++ Little Ed & The Soundmasters – It’s A Dream ++ Arzachel – Queen St. Gang ++ Blackrock – Yeah Yeah ++ Black Merda – Cynthy-Ruth ++ The Ceyleib People – Dyl ++ Léon Franciloi – Vacances ++ Harvey Mandel – A Wade in The Water ++ Pink Floyd – The Nile Song

Harmonia :: Live 1974

Recorded at a converted German railway station with pristine sound quality, Live 1974 is an essential snapshot of Harmonia in their purest form. The legendary kosmische trio consisting of Neu!'s Michael Rother and Cluster's Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius, the concert's free-flowing and elongated jams are improvisational and void of the studio material from their '74 studio debut Musik von Harmonia. Anchored by pulsating motorik drum machines, the soundscapes feature intoxicating arrays of synths and electronic organ and Rother's transcendent guitar textures . . .

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Transmissions :: Annahstasia

Annahstasia is one of the most exciting singer/songwriters in the modern folk scene, blending the soul jazz of Terry Callier with Nick Drake’s hushed chamber folk, with her magnificent voice way out front in the mix, sometimes recalling the fullness of singers like Odetta or the jazzy sway of Hejira-era Joni Mitchell. On this week’s show, she joins us to discuss the spaciousness and quietude required to get into a creative zone, the influence of Terry Callier, blazing her own trail as a self-described “Black girl playing her guitar," and her latest release, a live . . .

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Maisy Owen :: Dark on a Sunny Day

On her debut Dark on a Sunny Day, Nashville songwriter Maisy Owen lets poison seep through the sweetness. Pristine country-folk songs bloom into quietly devastating portraits of unhealthy devotion, where the damage is easy to miss beneath the glitter . . .

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Willie Nelson & Family :: Alliance Wagon Yard, Austin, TX (January 28, 1975)

There's live Willie Nelson, and then there's 1975 Willie Nelson. Captured for the Texas TV series "Lone Star Cross Country Music Hour" just months before Red Headed Stranger, this recently resurfaced set catches Willie & Family at their most intuitive: loose, conversational, and quietly radical . . .

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Jackie West :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Jackie West doesn't abandon the intimacy of Close To The Mystery on Silent Century—she simply gives it more air to breathe. Bigger guitars, wider arrangements, and a sharpened sense of purpose frame a conversation about evolution, instinct, and the strange life songs take on after they're finished . . .

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: Erin Durant

For her Lagniappe Session, Erin Durant turns to two touchstones: Judee Sill's “Jesus Was a Cross Maker” and Lucinda Williams' “Jackson.” Recorded between Topanga and Brooklyn with longtime collaborators Kyp Malone and Gabe Galvin, these performances move between close study and personal memory—stepping into Sill's world while reconnecting with the roads, literature, and landscapes of Durant's Louisiana upbringing through Williams' lens . . .

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Fiona Apple’s Tidal at 30

Fiona Apple was only 18 when she released Tidal in 1996. Three decades on, her debut remains a bracing introduction to a songwriter whose literary gifts, compositional confidence, and emotional authority were already unmistakable . . .

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Jah Shaka Meets Aswad In Addis Ababa Studio

In 1985, as digital dancehall was redrawing reggae's map, Jah Shaka and Aswad entered the studio to forge one of British dub's most singular statements—a devotional set of heavyweight rhythms, cavernous mixes, and Rastafarian sonics still resonating four decades on . . .

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Beth Orton :: The Ground Above

Beth Orton's The Ground Above is a free-flowing mixture of electronic funk, spirit walking jazz, and ambient folk. Only Orton can make music as affecting as this, showing off an ear for the haunted and the heavy. Songwriting for Orton has always mirrored a sort of lucid dreaming—a therapeutic space where she can will herself to fly, but cannot control her monsters underground and the spirit to rise above them . . .

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