Pulp Jazz: Twenty-First Century Groove Music (A Mixtape)

MixtapesPosted on

Pulp Jazz draws on long-traduced, sometimes crassly commercial, musical forms—jazz-funk, exotica, new age, sci-fi schlock, lounge music and library—and channels it all into deeply funky, low-key psychedelic groove music. More than that, like the best pulp, it somehow comes out sexy as hell, slinky and dangerous. Aquarium Drunkard has been here for it. The world could stand to be a shade groovier. And when we were asked for a mixtape of the primo stuff, we were more than happy to oblige. It’s what we do.

Let’s hope this fresh wave of fusion . . .

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Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard :: February 2024

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Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard returns with a new installment of Chad DePasquale’s New Happy Gathering — freak-out funk, moody pop & avant-folk, plus a few tributes to some recently departed heroes. Then, Tyler Wilcox’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb offers up some moody, ambient jazziness, gathered (mostly) from late 2023 and early 2024. Sunday, 5-7pm Pacific Standard Time . . .

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Nick Schofield :: Ambient Ensemble

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Since moving from Montreal to the bilingual city of Gatineau, Nick Schofield has scaled up his solo project into an ensemble. On his latest album, the electronic voyager glides through 12 short songs. Fans of kankyō ongaku may be used to sidelong odysseys, but Schofield’s compositions fade in and out in five minutes or less, allowing for a panoply of melodic song-sketches . . .

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Mary Timony :: Untame The Tiger

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A veteran of such well-loved post-punk outfits as Autoclave and Helium, Mary Timony's Untame The Tiger emerged from a season of suffering. But it's far from a downer, surfing waves of survival with folky melodies and punky bursts of energy . . .

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Miles Davis :: Recorded On Stage, 1973/1974

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Collected here are five selections from a private stash of stage recordings, capturing the band at the Shaboo Inn in Willimantic, CT, London’s Rainbow Theater, and a pair of dates on its extraordinary tour of Brazil in the summer of ‘74. Beyond the blistering performances featured therein, the Brazil tapes are a notable document of guitarist Dominique Gaumont’s brief time with the band - a tenure that began on March 30, 1974 (as captured on sides 3 and 4 of the Dark Magus LP) and lasted through the fall . . .

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

SIRIUSPosted on

Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays. All tunes via our ongoing Lagniappe Sessions series ...

34.1090° N, 118.2334° W . . .

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John Surman :: Way Back When

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Discoveries like Way Back When (as well as the truly astonishing excavations the Jazz in Britain project has been putting out these last few years) illustrate how dramatically the UK jazz scene was metamorphosizing at the turn of the 1970s. There was a creative feedback mechanism at work, as innovative ideas from at home and abroad—American electricity, the European avant-garde, Canterbury prog and a homegrown free improvisation tradition going back to AMM and Cornelius Cardew—were instantly assimilated and refined . . .

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Transmissions :: Ty Segall

Podcast Ty SegallPosted on

For the last decade-and-a-half, Ty Segall has reliably cranked out records that show off his range, ping-ponging from scuzzed out glam rock to chiming folk ballads. He joins us this week to discuss his proggy new album Three Bells, his dogs, the influence of T Rex, and much more . . .

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The Smile :: Wall of Eyes

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Wall of Eyes is a canvas haunted by doubles, forking paths; alternate lives lived at a distance, in pieces, through keyholes. It’s also an effort that feels bracingly contemporary with a younger generation of rockers feeding on rhythmic eclecticism, from Tonstartssbandht to Water From Your Eyes. That it should mark another confident step into a post-Radiohead future is appropriate, if bittersweet . . .

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Bonus Tracks, Vol. 7 :: Thelonious Monk, Stevie Nicks, Love

Bonus Tracks Love Stevie Nicks Thelonious MonkPosted on

With vinyl prices still soaring, we may be on the cusp of a genuine compact disc revival! Or maybe not — who knows? But we do know that there are tons of awesome bonus tracks to be found lurking in the used CD bins. Here are just a few more . . .

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CAN :: Volkshalle Wagtzenborn-Steinberg, Giessen, October 22, 1971

CANPosted on

Farewell to Damo Suzuki, an indomitable spirit, an outrageous performer, a force of nature. During his time with Can in the 1970s, he offered an authentic, thrilling alternative to the rock frontman role, embracing the wild, all gates open approach of his bandmates’ music — and doubling down on it fearlessly.

For some real live evil, dig into this absolutely killer audience recording of Can in 1971 from the Tago Mago era, with Damo effortlessly surfing the waves of this still-radical sound, shrieking, whispering, conjuring, celebrating. Schmidt called Can’s onstage high points “Glücksgefühl, the ecstasy.” You’ll . . .

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The Sorcerers :: I Too Am A Stranger

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Not unlike Greg Foat or the Natural Yogurt Band, the Sorcerers are another purveyor of what we recently called pulp jazz, effortlessly funky stuff trussed up with all kinds of less-reputable genre signifiers, drawn from library grooves, exotica, lounge music, kung fu movie soundtracks, instro-hipster canned psychedelia. What we love about this style is the way it hearkens back to a time when jazz was a global pop form, when its permutations, high and low, still belonged to night clubs and film scores and radio waves. At their best, the Sorcerers remind us of when jazz was genuinely . . .

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Brion Gysin :: Junk

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Brion Gysin rubbed elbows with William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. The new version of his 1983 album Junk is something of an archeological expedition: it mixes alternates and an instrumental alongside an acoustic demo and a handful of tracks released in Gysin’s lifetime to create a record that never was. It’s an interesting, if short listen that mixes the ideas flowing out of New York with Gysin’s poetry and French singers . . .

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Liam Kazar :: Next Time Around

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Liam Kazar returns with a taste of his tbd next LP. "Next Time Around" is breezy, displaying Kazar's gentle pop sensibility. His plaintive voice and the subtle music spin a somewhat sadder tune than what was on offer on his revelatory Due North LP, but the results are as sublime . . .

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Setting :: At Black Mountain College Museum

SettingPosted on

In Setting, the trio of Bowles, Fennelly and Westerlund have lit upon an improvisational ensemble of astonishing force and inventiveness, fluent in a musical language that melds roots, jazz, drone and minimalism. Their work is as swirling and cryptic as the abstract expressionists who once called Black Mountain College home. Even as a chaser to their proper album from last fall, at Black Mountain College Museum shows the group relentlessly evolving. It possesses a gnarled, terrible beauty. Like Appalachia itself . . .

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