Ilyas Ahmed :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

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On his new record Closer to Stranger, Portland guitarist and singer Ilyas Ahmed picks up the threads that run through his numerous solo records and collaborations with Liz Harris of Grouper and Dreamboat (with Matt Carlson and Jonathan Sielaff of Golden Retriever) and ties them into dreamy new knots.

It represents Ahmed's "one-man band" ambitions, packed with electric and acoustic guitars, Fender Rhodes, patient, steady drums, and washes of synthesizer (Sielaff shows up to play some gorgeous sax on album highlight "Zero For Below"), which add up to a sound equally rooted in psych-folk lonerism and the avant-garde. It's a mellow, often comforting album, but there are complicated concerns running throughout, meditations on "uneasy identity politics during times of unreason, seeking peace amidst chaos," Ahmed's label MIE states.

Recently, AD caught up with Ahmed to dig deeper into Closer to Stranger's unique vibe.

Aquarium Drunkard: This record is mostly just you, but it's expansive. It sounds like a band record much more than a "solo guitarist" kind of deal. How did you get the album to that place?

Ilyas Ahmed: I certainly listen to a lot of solo performers, but I think the archetype in my head -- what I think about when I think about music -- is a band. I think almost across the board, my solo records have been this "imaginary band" situation. I listen to a lot of different music and always think, "What would happen if I crossed this with this?" [Laughs]

Ilyas Ahmed :: Meditation On The Split Self

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Trummors :: Breezin’

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Laurel Canyon shuffle and languid harmonica. Trummors new single off last year’s great Headlands lp is now beautifully accompanied by a video, courtesy of the band’s friend Amy Scott -- director of the Hal Ashby memoir Hal, who utilized her grandmother’s personal 8mm film for the video. More about the cache of film from Amy, below …

“Maybe ten years ago or so, my grandmother Bernice gave me a large plastic bin that held 63 reels of 8mm film that my grandfather had shot. “You’ll know what to do with this,” she said. I moved that bin around the country with me from home to home knowing someday I would find the time to transfer it all. A few months ago I finally watched these reels – which spanned from 1955 to 1968. They told the story of my mom’s family, of where we came from, but it also told a story of western America. These were Dust Bowl survivors who loved each other, the open road, and a groovin' good time. When I heard the Trummors song “Breezin’” I thought it vibed perfectly with the story I saw emerging from this footage.” / d norsen

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Electronic System :: Skylab (1974)

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Space is the place. Speaking of cinematic in scope, enter "Skylab", released in 1974 via the Belgium group Electronic System's lp, Tchip.Tchip (Vol. 3). A fourteen and half minute instrumental glide that renders the rest of the album disposable, "Skylab" sits confidently as the final entry of side B.

While the preceding tracks come off as novelty Moog synthesizer exercises, "Skylab" is anything but. Moody, nuanced and atmospheric, the composition evokes an era-appropriate futurism. Dim . . .

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Brigid Mae Power :: The Two Worlds

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Music is mood; atmosphere. And the environs must be right. Brigid Mae Power knows this, as she struggles to finish her statement on female oppression, “Don’t Shut Me Up (Politely)” in the bright ambiance of Portland, Oregon, departing for her hometown of Galway, Ireland, where a sense of dreary isolation comes to inform her recently released sophomore lp, The Two Worlds. Power’s stark, gothic-folk commands full attention on this latest work, with droning chords, pulsing drums reminiscent of Moe Tucker’s . . .

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Laura Ballance :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Laura Ballance SuperchunkPosted on

Superchunk's What a Time To Be Alive kicks off with a charging rush. "There's a crooked line that runs through every crease in this map," singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan seethes, singing over a frenzied "Running on Empty" beat from drummer Jon Wurster, power chords from guitarist Jim Wilbur, and Laura Ballance's steady, pounding bass. "We can't pretend to be surprised/Oh, what a time to be alive," McCaughan sings, dazed at the start of the Trump Era.

What a Time To . . .

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Nino Ferrer :: Looking For You (1974)

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Printed in France. Made in France. Clocking in at just under six minutes, "Looking For You" is cinematic in scope -- listener willing. Released in 1974  on Nino Ferrer's Nino & Radiah, an album which found the French artist backed by the Lafayette Afro Rock Band, the track is the cornerstone of a suite of songs evoking a slow funk wafting off . . .

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SIRIUS/XMU :: Aquarium Drunkard Show (Noon EST, Channel 35)

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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 511: Jean Michel Bernard — Générique Stephane ++ Rosebud — Interstellar Overdrive ++ Talking Heads — I Zimbra ++ Gal Costa — Relance ++ Lee “Scratch” Perry — City To Hot ++ Ekambi Brillant — Africa Africa ++ Tom Tom Club — L’î‰léphant ++ Omni — Afterlife ++ Medium Medium — Hungry, So Angry ++ Talking Heads — Seen And Not Seen ++ Vivienne Goldman — Private Armies Dub ++ Maximum Joy — Let It Take You There ++ Atlas Sound — Recent Bedroom . . .

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Richard Lloyd :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

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Richard Lloyd didn't set out to write a rock & roll memoir. While his debut book,  Everything Is Combustible:  Television, CBGB's and Five Decades of Rock and Roll: The Memoirs of an Alchemical Guitarist, rarely skimps on musical detail, his philosophical aim stays clear.  As Lloyd recounts his run-ins with Keith Moon, Buddy Guy, Keith Richards, and dozens more, details his youth, early days in Television, work with Matthew Sweet, and  documents his considerable struggles -- with drugs, the music business, and murky  areas in-between -- his sharp, spiritual eye remains trained on . . .

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Present Of The Past :: Houston’s Folk Underground / A Medley

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The early 1960’s: folk songs reflecting social change and protest amidst the Civil Rights Movement could be heard on radios everywhere. Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez inspired many a youth to pick up a guitar and harmonize with their peers. One of the lesser known communities that sprung up in the immediate aftermath was based in Houston, TX   at a club called The Jester Lounge. Opening in 1962, The Jester is known to be the supposed birthplace of folk music in Houston. Notable early performers from this period included K . . .

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Hiss Golden Messenger :: Wah-Wah Cowboys, Volume I & 2

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I made the first Wah Wah Cowboys mix in 2009-- almost ten years ago, which I cannot believe--as a way towards bit of mental calm after my wife and I had our first kid, Elijah, who is now nine years old and sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of hot chocolate; he'll be as tall as me soon. At the time, I was looking to collect in one place some music that seemed to share a distinct shaggy, swinging aesthetic. The songs on the Wah Wah Cowboys mixes-- I made the second one . . .

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Wes Montgomery :: In Paris / The Definitive ORTF Recording

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Resonance Records has been digging up a number of previously unheard recordings from the legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery in recent years. Their latest effort is more familiar – but it's just as essential. These 1965 live recordings have circulated in innumerable forms over the decades, but never in such stellar sound . . .

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: Kacy & Clayton

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Lagniappe (la ·gniappe) noun ‘lan-ˌyap,’ — 1. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. 2. Something given or obtained as a gratuity or bonus.

One of our favorite albums of 2017, Kacy & Clayton's The Siren’s Song found the pair widening their scope, building on an existing foundation of the music and traditions of Southern Appalachia, the British Isles, and their rural ranch Saskatchewan home. Here, fittingly, they pay tribute to fellow Canadian exports Gordon Lightfoot and Ian & Sylvia. Kacy & Clayton, in their own words, below.

For our Lagniappe Session, we chose to record a couple songs from two Canadian artists that have had a profound influence on our own music. The first being Gordon Lightfoot’s Bend In The Water, and the second being Ian & Sylvia and the Great Speckled Bird’s Calgary.  We consider Bend In The Water to  be one of Lightfoot’s most good-timing compositions and an important installment in the Canadian Canoe-Rock sub-genre. Calgary is  filled with perfect imagery of ice flows on the Bow River, a card game on the Gulf of Mexico, and one friend’s desperate plea to borrow money from another.

Kacy & Clayton :: Bend In The Water (Gordon Lightfoot)

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SIRIUS/XMU :: Aquarium Drunkard Show (Noon EST, Channel 35)

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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. Image via Christian Marclay.

SIRIUS 510:   Jean Michel Bernard — Générique Stephane ++ Dorothy Ashby - The Moving Finger ++ The Black Beats - The Mod Trade ++ X'lents - Psychedelia ++ Kalyanji Anadji - Dharmatma Theme Music ++ Shark Move - Evil War ++ Khruangbin - Maria Tambien ++ July - The Way ++ Usha Khanna - Hotel Incidental Music . . .

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Jerry David DeCicca :: Time The Teacher

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“Watermelon,” the second track on Jerry David DeCicca’s Time the Teacher, is an ode to – you guessed it – watermelons. With an almost nursery-rhyme like cadence and gentle backing vocals, it’s as simple a song as they come. Or is it? Through some strange alchemy, by the end of “Watermelon,” you may find yourself in wonder at the complexity and perfection of the song’s subject. That’s right -- watermelons are a goddamn miracle.

Time the Teacher is filled with these quiet moments of resonance and revelation, whether DeCicca is dealing with the death of long-lost lover or the mystical tapping of a woodpecker at dawn. Guided by producer Jeb Loy Nichols and Benedic Lamdin, the intimate vibe of the lyrics is matched by the music, which is spare and lovely. Rich piano, gospel-tinged vocals, upright bass and fluttering horns, provided by a cast of European players, all frame DeCicca's warm vocals. For touchstones, you could point back to Van Morrison's early '70s work or any number of private press LPs from the same era, but it's to the songwriter and his cohorts' credit that Time the Teacher never feels like an exercise in nostalgia. Instead, it feels vibrant and alive, even in the mellowest, most melancholy passages.

AD recently caught up with JDD via telephone from his home in Bulverde, Texas, where many of the songs on the record were formed on his front porch with a can of Tecate nearby.

Aquarium Drunkard: You made this record in a completely new way for you, working with players remotely. What did that process reveal to you?

Jerry David DeCicca: Nobody that plays on the records is American. They're all either English or European; I think the trumpet player is Italian. So there's a very European sensibility to the playing. [All the players are into] American modern jazz but have their own sensibility. They have their own sense of humor and I think to be able to have that...is pretty rare. All the players are more experimental.

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