Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can be heard every Wednesday at 7pm PST with encore broadcasts on-demand via the SIRIUS/XM app.
This week: Vintage psychedelic music spanning the continent of Africa, new ambient textures via Germany, some ECM favorites and more . . .
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A closer look at one of our favorite titles from last year, Gloria Barnes’ Uptown is a super rare gem of killer 70s funk and soul. As the original pressing goes for over 3k on Discogs, it was mighty gracious of Ohio’s Colemine Records to dig this one out of obscurity (but hurry up, they’ve only got 5 copies left). Barnes hailed from Harlem, and for this record – her only known recorded document – she's backed . . .
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Last year, stalwart label Tompkins Square quietly released Harmony Rockets' Lachesis/Clotho/Atropos, a collaborative album featuring a stunning constellation of players: Jonathan Donahue, Grasshopper, and Jesse Chandler of Mercury Rev, avant-folk guitarist Peter Walker, Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, Wilco's become a member or log in.
Influences: Headhunters-era Herbie Hancock, George Duke, esoteric European prog -- all with an assist from elements of modern electronic music. Written, arranged, recorded and produced with as much analog gear as possible, this is LA's Joy Guerrilla, and the instrumental album, Skyline, is their debut.
Comprised of Magda Daniec and Adam Grab, the pair recorded Skyline straight to tape in their Jefferson Park neighborhood apartment. In addition to the impact of the aforementioned grip of influences, Daniec and Grab told us they find . . .
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German ambient artist Christian Grothe (who works under the pseudonym, Kryshe) is set to release his next lp, Hauch, at the end of the month via Serein records.
A whitecap of nocturnal atmosphere, the album's title track unfolds reflexively. Minimal music, the composition is spatially lit by Grothe's restrained trumpet and instinctual homespun production. Far from scattershot, recorded straight to analog tape, the digitally manipulated fragments possess an aural, naturalistic, warmth.
In Kryshe's case, the inevitable Budd/Eno comparisons are . . .
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Lloyd Miller, a complicated man with a fascinating range of musical vocabulary, was known amongst his peers in the ethno-musicologist world as something of a mad genius, having immersed himself in dozens of languages and hundreds of instruments, receiving a doctorate with a concentration in Persian music.
A little under a decade ago, London’s Jazzman Records compiled an exquisite anthology of Miller’s various groups and recordings. Detailing in gorgeous composition, the set exhibits the musician's enchantment with the music and . . .
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Unearthed returns with more bootleg gold from yesteryear. The latest collection gathers together some choice live performances broadcast over the WLIR-FM airwaves from Ultrasonic Studios in Hempstead, Long Island. In the early to mid 1970s, the studio hosted intimate concerts by visionary britfolkies, New Orleans night trippers, exploratory jazz-funksters, southern rock chooglers and many more . . .
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When a band has master wordsmiths like David Berman and Jerry David DeCicca praising its lyrics, you take note. When that same band has recruited long lost singer-songwriter Edith Frost to contribute vocals and piano to its latest LP, you practically have no choice but to pay attention. State Champion's Send Flowers delivers on these enticements — and then some.
Each of the album's seven songs are total gems, packed with thrift store wisdom and woozy wistfulness (all . . .
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Most of what you read concerning the Velvet Underground will
inevitably note how woefully under-appreciated the group were during its brief
lifespan. But the VU were superstars — and not just in the Warholian sense — in
certain parts of the U.S. Especially Boston. This quintessential New York City
band made Beantown its home away from home for much of the late 60s, playing
dozens of sold-out shows at the Boston Tea Party to a devoted cult of
followers.
What kind of people attended these shows? Let’s hand the mic
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Via Gothenburg, Sweden, DIY newcomer Karl Hund quietly dropped his self-titled debut EP ten days before the close of 2018. Not unlike the sounds emanating out of Brighton, UK, via Max Kinghorn-Mills' Hollow Hand, Hund distills five decades of gauzy west coast psych, pop and rock into a low-key four track offering that never wears out its welcome. Actually, make that five if you count the set's closing Beatles cover.
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As anyone who's ever seen him live can attest, Glenn Kotche is an inventive player, not beholden to typical rock & roll tropes and unafraid to interject left of center approaches on stage. The Wilco/On Fillmore drummer seems to have an innate ability to seize a musical opportunity when one presents itself. So when the staff at the NYU Percussion Ensemble, under the direction of Sean Statser and Jonathan . . .
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Backed by Thomas Fonnesbaek on bass and Paul Svanberg on drums, veteran Swedish jazz pianist Lars Jansson returned late last year with the release of "Just This", the trio's first material since their 2017 detour, "Green Moss Black Sand" -- a one-off project in collaboration with Icelandic saxophonist, Sigurður Flosason . . .
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New year. Same time. Same freak. The Aquarium Drunkard Show / Wednesdays, 7pm California time with encore broadcasts on-demand via the SIRIUS/XM app.
Tonight, new music from Sweden's Karl Hund, Tim Presley's White Fence, Yoshinori Hayashi, Julien Gasc and more . . .
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Originally released in 1994, and reissued last year via the Berlin-based Midgar Records, Acid Mt. Fuji marked the debut lp of the late Japanese producer Susumu Yokota. Atmospheric and awash in a myriad of electronic, ambient, textures, the record more than earns its title. Buoyed by an atypical amalgam of numinous field recordings, drones, drum machines, and samples, Fuji's hour and 14 minute runtime is very much indeed a trip . . .
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Welcome to the December edition of the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions podcast. We just published our massive and overstuffed Year in Review feature, and to celebrate, members of the AD crew hooked up to discuss the year in music and more . . .
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