Aquarium Drunkard: A Decade Floating In The Ether / The Shirt

AD MerchPosted on

Time flies. Ten years of genre-bending, freeform interstitial airwave debris - black sand blues, green swamp fuzz, psych, soul, garage, funk, jazz and beyond. 2005-2015.

Decade — Celebrating Ten Years Floating In The Ether

Transmitting somewhere off the coast of Los Angeles, this is the t-shirt. Get yours. here.

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K. Leimer :: Savant

K. Leimer The AD InterviewPosted on

In the Pacific Northwest of the late ‘70s, electronic composer K. Leimer dedicated himself to enveloping, minimal soundscapes, but in the early ‘80s, he launched Savant, an ambitious studio project involving a large cast of players – including Marc Barreca, Op Magazine publisher John Foster, and members of Seattle power pop band the New Flamingos – to explore a new jittery, stitched-together sound featuring elements of post-punk, industrial, progressive rock, and funk. “Some guys I knew, some I didn’t know. [They] seemed to be willing to give some time to it and work in a non-traditional way,” Leimer says, reflecting on the release of Artificial Dance, a newly released collection of music drawing from Savant’s 1983 album The Neo Realist (At Rest), 12” singles, and unreleased tracks.

The compilation is his second archival release for RVNG Intl., following the sublime ambient collection A Period Review: Original Recordings: 1975 — 1983. Leimer has continued making music, running the Palace of Lights imprint, and developing new approaches to art and sound. He discussed the Savant era with Aquarium Drunkard via phone from Hawaii, where he now resides.

Aquarium Drunkard: What inspired you to start working in this unique fashion, bringing in musicians to play and editing those performances together into new things?

K. Leimer: In a way, it was a lot easier. There’s something about sitting in a studio at that time with a click track and a couple of instruments and working your way through things…it can be very tedious and frustrating. The stuff I did for [RVNG Intl. collection] A Period of Review when I was first starting obviously wasn’t interested in rock or any kind of beat [driven] stuff really, but that’s also kind of fun. It’s such a saturated presence in culture, then and now, that it seemed like it would be interesting to take the ideas that I had been exploring on my own and apply them to a different set of circumstances.

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Ought :: Sun Coming Down

OughtPosted on

Montreal post-punkers Ought returned last week with Sun Coming Down, their second full length following several eps beginning in 2012. And while shades of Talking Heads, Television, the Fall and the Feelies still abound, here, that potent, frenetic, cabal of influence is even headier. The four piece (once again in cahoots with Constellation Records) use/access the aforementioned influence, yet never devolve into undue pastiche. This is here, this music is now.

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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 now be heard twice, every Friday — Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.

SIRIUS 405: Jean Michel Bernard — Générique Stephane ++ Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - My War (Black Flag) ++ Pylon - Cool ++ Deerhunter - Snakeskin ++ Deerhunter - Dr. Glass ++ Beach House - Sparks ++ The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms ++ Josef K - 16 Years ++ Fire Engines - Meat Whiplash ++ Ought - Men For Miles ++ The Fall - What You Need ++ The Clash - The Call . . .

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Bob Dylan w/ Robbie Robertson: I Can’t Leave Her Behind

Bob Dylan Odds & Ends Robbie RoberstonPosted on

Rumors were flying all summer about a massive Bootleg Series covering Bob Dylan's unbelievable, earth-shaking 1965-66 period. And hey, the rumors were true. The Cutting Edge (available in 2-, 6- and 18-(!!!) disc versions) draws back the curtain on Dylan's studio sessions for Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde, three of the best albums made by anyone, ever.

I know what you're thinking -- "Do I really need 18 discs of false starts . . .

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: Calvin Love

Calvin Love Lagniappe SessionsPosted on

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

The record is entitled Super Future -- Calvin Love's follow-up to 2012's New Radar. Like Radar -- a record whose focused, slender arrangements were populated by thin guitars, electronic drums . . .

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Miles Davis w/ John Coltrane: “Walkin'” / Cafe Bohemia, 1958

Jazz John Coltrane Miles DavisPosted on

John Coltrane would've turned 89 today. While it's a fun parlor game to imagine the twists and turns the saxophonist's music might've taken if he'd lived just another decade longer, in the end we're lucky to have had him as long we did -- and that he left behind such a wealth of sounds to explore. WKCR's annual, all-day Coltrane birthday tribute is always . . .

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Swan Silvertones :: If You Believe Your God Is Dead (Try Mine)

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There’s not much that needs to be said about this Swan Silvertones cut. A far cry from the hall of fame gospel group’s early (and heavenly) A Capella arrangements, “If You Believe Your God Is Dead” delivers the word via three minutes and twelve seconds of raw, electrifying funk. Lord knows I wouldn’t have been crawling under pews and drawing pictures in the bulletin during Sunday service if the Silvertones had . . .

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Bobby Brown :: Hawaii

Bobby BrownPosted on

Hawaii’s Bobby Brown redefines private press psych-folk, with his floating echo, homegrown instrumentation (pictured above) and atmospheric blend of tropical surf vibes, Indian raga music and new age spaciousness. Brown cut three records, including the “live” album from which this track is culled. As the story goes, the album was performed to an audience of one: Brown’s dog, inside his van. Eccentricities aside, “Hawaii” is an undeniably beautiful peace of music. At once earthy, aquatic and cosmic, it transcends space, time and most definitely genre. It’s weightless and it’s infinite, so go ahead . . .

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Maurice & Mac :: Why Don’t You Try Me

Maurice & MacPosted on

Maurice McAlister and Green "Mac" McLauren were part of the Chicago-based doo-wop group The Radiants, recording on Chess Records in the 1960s. In the latter half of the decade, they parted ways with that group and headed down to Muscle Shoals, Alabama where they recorded a number of songs at the legendary Fame Studios, including the incendiary 1968 cut “Why Don’t You Try Me,” recently found infusing the soul into our recent Late August Light . . .

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Aquarium Drunkard Presents: No Jacket Required — CMJ 2015 — October 16th — Rough Trade, NYC

Aquarium Drunkard Presents CMJPosted on

AD / NYC. Aquarium Drunkard — CMJ 2015 — No Jacket Required. October 16th at Rough Trade in Brooklyn. Tickets available, here. More details next month. . .

Protomartyr ~ Drinks ~ Omni ~

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

SIRIUSPosted on

Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can now be heard twice, every Friday — Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.

SIRIUS 404: Jean Michel Bernard — Générique Stephane ++  Cotton Jones - Cotton & Velvet ++ Yo La Tengo - Autumn Sweater ++ Jennifer Castle - Powers ++ Steve Gunn - Wildwood ++ Ryley Walker - On The Banks of The Old Kishwaukee ++ Joan Shelley - Over And Even ++ Meg Baird - Counterfeiters ++ Kurt Vile - He’s Alright ++ Norma Tanega - You’re . . .

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Christine Perfect (Christine McVie) :: I Want You

Christine PerfectPosted on

Before joining Fleetwood Mac and taking John McVie's name in marriage in 1970 --   and just after her stint in the underground British blues band, Chicken Shack (1967-68) -- Christine Perfect cut a solo album in 1969 that featured her smoky, soulful and sensual vocals in what is possibly her greatest overall performance in this style. Christine, of course, wrote and sang on some massive Fleetwood . . .

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The Invincibles :: Heart Full Of Love

The InvinciblesPosted on

Soulful soprano voices exist everywhere in Deep Soul music but few reach the stirringly emotional heights of this track from the LA group, The Invincibles. A few singles exist to their name (none being remotely affordable) but even fewer LPs. Well, to be precise, none.

Dave Richardson, Clifton Knight and Lester Johnson recorded their first few singles under Warner Bros. and their R&B subsidiary, Loma. “Heart Full of Love” is backed by and riddled with a noodling guitar of the sunny yet begging “I’ll Come Crawling” and then their relationship troubles continue with 1966’s deep anthem . . .

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Roadside Graves :: Acne/Ears

Roadside GravesPosted on

Was there ever any doubt they'd be back? That's the only question to consider when listening to Roadside Graves' Acne/Ears -- their first long-player in four years.

As aspirations go, every band would love for music-making to be a full-time endeavor. But as realities set in, most bands live parallel lives: There's the music, life as a band, the thing that for listeners might as well exist independently of anything real. And then there's everything else. Jobs and relationships and the trying… the trying to settle into the lives that the rest of us do. Eventually, something is compromised and one of those lives wins out. Most usually, it's the latter. For the Graves, moving past 15 years as a band -- not middle-aged by any means, but no longer young -- there are jobs and families and all the rest. They're teachers. They're married. They're dispersed across states and countries. If that's face value -- and taking things a that -- then the answer to that question could be… sure, there was some doubt. That would be the incorrect answer.

That's important for two reasons. More generally, this is a band with consistently great work that just isn't going away, the kind of band whose output will surely be discovered and rediscovered for years. More specifically, Acne/Ears is evidence of the fight that's kept them going. Not the fight for success or to "make it" as a full-time band. But the fight against the self -- against doubt, growing through and beyond experiences, the occasions where those parallels synapse with conflict.

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