Sunday night: Aquarium Drunkard presents sax legend Azar Lawrence at Zebulon in Los Angeles, performing his spiritual jazz masterwork - 1974's Bridge Into The New Age, in its entirety. Joined by an all-star group that includes heavy hitters Henry Franklin (bass) and Munyungo Jackson (percussion), this is one for the ages. Tickets still available, become a member or log in.
Rescued from oblivion by the Love All Day label, Planetary Peace's beautifully beguiling Synthesis is a modular synth masterpiece. Created in the early 1980s by the husband-wife duo of Will & Kalima Sawyer, it was pressed up on limited edition cassette and generally forgotten until a collector came across a box of tapes collecting dust in New Mexico. An extremely . . .
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Reaching for Indigo, the fifth lp by Haley Fohr's Circuit des Yeux, begins with a cataclysmic break, a complete shift from one state of being into another. "Brainshift, came like a tidal wave," Fohr sings, her deep, rich voice hovering over a muted organ. The imagery is overpowering, like a submersion in deep water. Inspired by a profound moment of recognition, the album represents a giant step forward for the Chicago singer and composer.
Fohr's distinct voice has brought an exquisite flavor to a number of records this year -- including Mind of Mirrors' Undying Color and Six Organs of Admittance's Burning The Threshhold -- but Reaching for Indigo is most indicative of the fullness of her vision. Recorded with Cooper Crain of Bitchin' Bajas, the album trades in spectral folk, overlapping minimalism, and haunted psychedelia. Masterfully, Fohr uses each sonic element, from synth drones to layered acoustic guitars, to accentuate the emotional timbre of her singular voice.
"I really use chaos and chance a lot in my composition," Fohr explains over the phone. "I’m learning to be more communicative with my work. It definitely needs to convey what I’m feeling; the feeling has to translate, it's the thing I’m most concerned about."
Here, Fohr explains where the album came from, detailing how the writing of neurologist Oliver Sacks and socioeconomics influenced her approach. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Aquarium Drunkard: The title Reaching for Indigo references a specific moment in your life. Do you care to talk about that experience?
Haley Fohr: It was kind of a spiritual awakening, for lack of a better term. I mean, I’m not religious or anything [but] music has led the way this last decade in my life. There have been a lot of challenges and obstacles. A lot of times they manifest in a dark way and it becomes this do-or-die situation. But what happened to me on January 22nd, 2016 came from within me. It was a moment of clarity. I wasn’t necessarily unhappy, but I have to wonder -- 'cause I'd been touring constantly for the last four or five years -- if I was subconsciously searching for something. I was with a close friend, convulsing, and something clicked in me. I knew what I had to do. I pretty much isolated myself for a couple of months and wrote the songs that you hear on this record. I sat with myself and gave myself some space and things really started to coalesce in this really bizarre way.
AD: What triggered this event?
Haley Fohr: That’s the thing. It just came out of nowhere. It really felt like it came from intuition. It wasn’t brought on by an outside force; it was just within me. It was really late at night and I just started crying. I felt like I needed to do something. I was so afraid. At the time, I was dating a guy. I broke up with him. I was living with all these musicians and I just flew the coop.
AD: How did the people around you react?
Haley Fohr: I don’t know that anyone understood the logic behind it besides myself [but] I listened to myself and I was deeply rewarded. As an artist, when something really personal happens to you, you want to celebrate it and try to translate it in a universal way. A few months prior to working on these songs, Oliver Sacks had passed away. Towards the end of his life, he was sharing personal antidotes. One of them was about the color indigo and how it's scientifically undefined. Each color has a frequency, just as every music note has a frequency, but people have never come to terms on a unified frequency for indigo. The story that Oliver tells is one of taking a bunch of psychedelics and this cocktail of pills. [He envisioned indigo]...and said it was the most beautiful color he’d ever seen. Then it was gone and he never saw it again. I thought it was such a beautiful story about humanity and these undefined abstract things we find for worship throughout our culture. This moment, beyond definition, came to him and lived within him and then it was gone. For me, it was a really positive notion. Why else would you trudge through these day-to-day obstacles or existential crises? I mean that’s the point: reaching for something you’ll never reach.
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Originally released by P.S.F. Records in 1991, the indispensable Tokyo Flashback compilation was a gateway drug for many listeners, shining a light on some of Japan's most deeply fried underground acts, including Keiji Haino, Ghost, White Heaven and more. It remains one of the best entry points to this fertile (and ongoing) scene – especially in Black Editions' labor of love double-LP reissue (the first time the comp has been available on vinyl), which looks as good as it sounds. Historical importance aside, Tokyo Flashback is just a fantastic listen from side A to side D, whether it's Marble Sheep's massive, Hawkwind-worthy opening jam to Ghost's acid-drenched psych folk improv. It's been altering minds worldwide for more than a quarter century now – let it alter yours.
Tokyo Flashback by Tokyo Flashback
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Penned by Richard Atkins and Richard Manning at age 19, and recorded with the Wrecking Crew in Los Angeles, the s/t Richard Twice lp found a home via Mercury Records in 1969. A concise statement of diaphanous psychedelia, the record's a soft blend of harmonic folk-pop elegantly filled out by strings, brass and flutes. It also proved to be the their sole release following a fateful night performing in Los Angeles at a small Hollywood club -- a night the NY Times . . .
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On his new ep The Load, Michael Nau chases his latest album, Some Twist, with another shot. The songs are drawn from the same batch as that full-length, but fully worth their own attention. The title track couples JJ Cale vibes with skronking free jazz; "Sure It Can" drifts into blissful R&B; "Diamond Anyway" finds Nau pairing his voice with Natalie Prass, conjuring up spooky, string-soaked drama.
Today, we're happy to share a mixtape from Nau, one that showcases his attraction to the relationship between rhythm and melody. "There's not really a theme to it," Nau says, "But I've realized these are all songs I've asked 'Hey, what's this' [about] over the years, [hearing them on] someone else's playlist." Tracklist below. The Load is available now on Suicide Squeeze Records.
Some Strange Rain :: Michael Nau/A Mixtape
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As evidenced by our last conversation with composer and teacher Laraaji, the man has a magical way with words. While so often contemplative music is defined by its serenity and placidity --to be clear, this is a feature, not a bug -- Laraaji's music balances its calm with spikes of animated joy. On his two new albums, Sun Gong and Bring on the Sun, he eases into worlds of pure sound vibration, creating a vibrant set of albums which convey his playful mysticism.
In advance of a reissue of his 1984 LP Vision Songs by Numero Group in January 2018, Laraaji joined AD via Skype to explore how his background as a comedian influences and infuses his work with its particular humor and radiance.
Aquarium Drunkard: You have two new albums, Sun Gong and Bring on the Sun. Do they have a connection in your mind?
Laaraji: They were recorded in the same three-day session. The gong by itself is a direction of music, more of a sound vibration exploration. I use it for meditation and journeying.
AD: How does the sun tie into the proceedings?
Laraaji: During the improvisation in the studio, a song emerged, and the chorus line was, “Bring on the sun.” Matthew Jones of Warp Records liked that as a title of the album, even though the song didn’t make it to the album. Sun Gong was also suggested by Jones before we even started the recording, which sounded great to me. [I am drawn to] the energy of the sun, the significance of the sun as an all-radiating, eternal service being up in there in the sky.
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Rare footage from the unreleased "Sense of Doubt" video in 1977 directed by Stanley Dorfman and reworked by Peter Wachsman.
Today Voyageur Press released Bowie: The Illustrated History, an in-depth look at the artist spanning the pre-Ziggy years, Berlin and beyond. We're giving away copies; leave a comment with your favorite Bowie moment below to enter . . .
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If you’re someone that's into records, especially soul records, you’ve probably heard of Carolina Soul. The Durham, NC based vinyl retailer has developed a cult following around its semi-weekly eBay auctions. Email blasts with subject lines like, “1,140+ Stellar Soul LPs” or “1,100+ Stupendous Jazz LPs,” lead to multi-day bidding wars over often extremely rare releases that founder Jason Perlmutter and co. have scoured the far corners of the country to find. And while some of their items will . . .
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Softly. Home recorded via reel-to-reel in Germany between 1970 and 1973, Sibylle Baier's Colour Green gently aches. Unearthed some 30+ years later by Orange Twin records in 2006, the album's fourteen tracks hover somewhere between melancholy and hope. Austere and lo-fi, it's an intimate portrait; one comprised solely of Baier's vocal paired with classical nylon-string guitar and the room's ambient atmosphere. Autumn, indeed.
Aquarium Drunkard is
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Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can be heard twice every Friday — Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.
SIRIUS 499: Aquarium Drunkard Halloween Intro 2017 ++ Eartha Kitt - I Want To Be Evil (AD Halloween Version) ++ The Munsters - Munster Creep ++ Bob McFadden & Dor - The Mummy ++ Danny Ware - The Zombie Stomp ++ The Sound Offs - The Angry Desert ++ The Blue Echoes — It’s Witchcraft ++ The Tomko’s — The Spook ++ Scotty Macgregor And His Spooks - I'm A Monster ++ Screaming . . .
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Woodsmoke, buffalo check and the crunch of broken pine needles underfoot -- the tiny death that is Autumn. And not unlike its spiritual cousin, our Indian Summer mix, Way Out Weather is best played at night with the windows down. Proceed . . .
Krano - Mi E TiRyley Walker - Everybody Is Crazy (Amen Dunes)Kacy & Clayton - The Siren's SongJoan Shelley - Over And EvenMeg Baird - CounterfeitersJennifer Castle - Sailing AwaySteve . . .
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There is something of the recently deceased Harry Dean Stanton to Scott McCaughey. Just as Stanton was to pictures for decades, McCaughey is that cool, mysterious guy in music that shows up in seemingly every conceivably happening circumstance and you're always happy to see him. As frontman for the indispensably great Young Fresh Fellows and Minus 5, he has produced a daunting welter of great songs while running his own show. But he thrives as the character actor as well, the sideman who has lent his uncanny skills and wild hair sensibility to everyone from R.E.M. to Robyn Hitchcock to Wilco over the past two decades. Most recently, McCaughey has served as the glue that holds together Filthy Friends, essentially an ambitious collaboration between R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker. We spoke to him about the experience of making their new record Invitation, the last days of R.E.M. and what it's like to record fast and loose.
Aquarium Drunkard: You've been in no shortage of epic recording sessions. How did Filthy Friends compare to recording with Young Fresh Fellows, Minus 5 or R.E.M.? Was the vibe more spontaneous or carefully curated? The record does a nice job of splitting the difference between feeling fully fleshed out without becoming overbaked.
Scott McCaughey: Filthy Friends rehearsed a couple days, went straight into the studio with 15 songs somewhat band-ready, and tracked, overdubbed, etc., all in about a week as I recall. It was really straightforward – Peter and I have developed a way of making records very quickly – not simply for economy’s sake (though certainly that’s a factor in this day and age), but because that’s the most energizing way to record. We have fun in the studio, but we’re also all about getting shit DONE. No agonizing over decisions, no more than three or four takes of a song usually, no polishing the life out of a performance. For my own records, working quickly in the studio has always been a fact of life. Of course, in latter stages of R.E.M., budgets got bigger and left more room for sonic explorations, re-recording, and sometimes indecisiveness. Peter and I got to experience that end of the rainbow, and we made some great records. But the preference these days is to slam them out, full-throttle style, and Corin, Kurt, and Bill were all on board for the high-speed voyage.
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Performing for the first time in the United States, Aquarium Drunkard and Black Editions present an evening with Kazuki Tomokawa at The Bootleg Theater / Los Angeles, Saturday - November 4th. Bill Orcutt and Itasca support, along with Aquarium Drunkard dj's manning the decks. Tickets available, here.
We're giving away several pairs of tickets to AD readers - to enter, leave a comment with your favorite Japanese lp released between 1965-1985.
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Self-described California conscious country, Mapache are made up of local good guys Sam Blasucci and Clay Finch -- think a blazed up Everly Brothers. The acoustic duo's self-titled debut long-player was released last week via the Santa Cruz based Spiritual Pajamas label. Produced by Dan Horne, the lp faithfully radiates the intimate warmth of their live shows...of which we suggest you catch. Check out the first taste off the record, "Mountain Song," below.
For heads . . .
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