Transmissions :: Dust-to-Digital

Since 1999, Atlanta label ⁠Dust-to-Digital⁠ has created lavish boxsets, books, and collections of gospel, folk, blues, field recordings, and other sounds sourced from deep global archives. This week on Transmissions, Lance and April Ledbetter join us to discuss the label's mission, navigating the algorithms, and of course, some of the most notable Dust-to-Digital fans, including the Brian Eno and Law & Order's Carey Lowell . . .

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Nick Hakim :: I Can See

A patient, deeply atmospheric work developed over more than five years, Nick Hakim's I Can See finds the in-demand producer and songwriter distilling his expansive palette into something quieter, more intimate, and quietly elegant. It offers the low-volume comfort of a dinner at a friend's house, where you never want to leave the room, but don't feel the need to talk much either . . .

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Wild Havana :: Wild Havana (1977)

In 1977, a Dutch multi-instrumentalist named Johan Smit tried to synthesize his adventures in 1970s music. Drawing on kraut, prog, jazz-funk and the ethnic rock experiments of Embryo and Popul Vuh, Smit and some of his friends put together one of the more weirdly compelling artifacts of the private press era. Wild Havana is at once retro and futuristic, looking backwards toward traditional sounds while anticipating the mutant funk and electro of the 1980s. It doesn't all come together, but not coming together is what makes it all work . . .

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Wau Wau Collectif :: Teranga

Originating in 2018 when Swedish music archaeologist Karl Jonas Winqvist brought together a group of local musicians, producers, and poets in the Senegalese fishing village of Toubab Dialaw, the Wau Wau Collectif has since felt like something too precious and magical to be real. Now comes the trilogy’s third and final installment, Teranaga, finalized during the band’s first live tour—a five-week journey across Europe with “three Swedes, three Senegalaise, a French driver, and a lovely mess of languages . . .

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The Durutti Column :: Renascent

In Ocean of Sound, David Toop describes ambient music as being more about a smell than a sound. Renascent, the first The Durutti Column record in over fifteen years, keeps us bumping into the bones inside that perfume, pushing Vini Reilly’s hazy summer aesthetics somewhere even more unperturbed and unpretentious. At 73, after a series of strokes that had theoretically compromised his ability to play, Reilly has made a record where all structure is just texture stretched thin enough, or all texture only structure slowed down . . .

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Beverly Glenn-Copeland :: Light of the Heavens

Recorded shortly after his 1986 cult classic, Keyboard Fantasies, “Light of the Heavens” is a nearly lost relic by Beverly Glenn-Copeland. Existing in the same mesmeric electronic sphere of that album, the track features rippling synths and heavenly chants, as Glenn-Copeland sings lovingly of our infinite cosmic connection. A dazzling video for the song, also unearthed, features trance-like interpretive dance, celestial stained glass, and a bespectacled Glenn-Copeland draped in era appropriate silky headband and robe, singing of “the weaving stars of deepest night,” a paean to the master plan behind our mysterious existence . . .

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Twisted Teens :: Florida Water Blues

The punk rock, blues-garage band known as Twisted Teens is moving at warp speed through music history straight on through to the future. This latest, Florida Water Blues, follows Blame the Clown by a few months and the self-titled by less than a year, and, never fear, there’s another one on the way. These people aren’t sitting around waiting, for fame, for money, for recognition. No they’re grabbing up music by the handfuls, mining 1930s electric blues licks and punk jackhammer beats and doo-woppy waltz time swirl and dropping them into a blender. This . . .

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Pax Nicholas and the Nettey Family :: Na Teef Know De Road of Teef

Long obscured by Afrobeat lore and rescued from obscurity by Daptone Records in 2009, Pax Nicholas and the Nettey Family's Na Teef Know De Road of Teef rides deep-pocket funk, burnished brass, and rolling polyrhythms across four tracks in just over 30 minutes. A long-running member of Fela Kuti's monster Africa 70 incarnation, Nicholas Addo-Nettey steps up as bandleader, driving the get-down from behind the congas. Legend has it Fela heard the record once, ordered it shelved, and in the process consigned the album to more than three decades in the wilderness. Abami Eda . . .

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

Broadcasting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.

Equatorial drift. Tropical groove. Forgotten frequencies. Zamrock. Ethio-jazz. Brazilian breeze. Library burners. Dub pressure. Funk mutations. Mulatu. Os Mutantes. Rikki Ililonga. Augustus Pablo. Fellow travelers.

SIRIUS 896: Intro ++ Syd Jones & The Troubadours – Cardova ++ Os Mutantes – Bat Macumba ++ Mad-A – Aouh Aouh ++ Los Holy’s – Cissy Strut ++ Titi – Rainmaker ++ Bongos Ikwue – All Night Long ++ Voices Of Conquest – Oh Yes My Lord ++ Bazali Bam – Bazali Bam ++ Rikki Ililonga & Musi-O-Tunya – Musamuseka ++ Ofege – It’s Not Easy ++ Rikki Ililonga & Musi-O-Tunya – Dark Sunrise ++ Mustafa Özkent – Burçak Tarlası ++ Big Jim Sullivan – Flower Power ++ Rich Ruth – Taken Back ++ The Hykkers – I Want A Break Thru ++ Chrissy Zebby Tembo – My Ancestors ++ Paul Ngozi – Suicide ++ Black Brothers – Saman Doye ++ Charles Stepney – Daddy’s Diddies ++ Helio Matheus – Mais Kriola ++ Orlandivo – Ondo Anda A Meu Amor ++ Mike Nyoni And Born Free – Mad Man ++ J.B. Green & Born Again – Time ++ Piero Umiliani – Lady Magnolia ++ Mulatu Astatke – Kasalefkut-Hulu ++ Alabaster DePlume – A Gentle Acaba (Vento Em Rosa) ++ Sessa – Gostar do Mundo ++ Syl Johnson – Soul Heaven ++ Gibson Kente – Saduva ++ Mulatu Astatke – Kulunmanqueleshi ++ Augustus Pablo – Cassava Piece (’79 Style) ++ Benny Soebardja & Lizard – Candle Light ++ Shark Move – Evil War

Transmissions :: Awake, My Soul

Describing the sound of Sacred Harp singing can be difficult. Arcane, otherworldly, and overwhelming, it’s a unique a cappella form of shape note Christian hymn singing that was born in England in the 18th century, but took root in the American south. It’s not something you listen to so much something as experience. This week on Transmissions, co-director Matt Hinton discusses his documentary on the subject, Awake, My Soul . . .

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Dog Days of Aquarium Drunkard III

No season inspires ritual listening quite like late summer. As the days flatten into heat haze and evenings linger just a little longer, familiar records reveal unexpected contours. As August stretches on, the Aquarium Drunkard crew returns with another installment of our annual Dog Days roundup: a stack of old favorites, forgotten treasures, new discoveries, and seasonal obsessions . . .

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Twenty Years Inside The Eraser

Listening with the hindsight of twenty years, The Eraser has lost none of its curved-glass cut and glimmer. Yorke was still riding high on a generational songwriting run and, with Nigel Godrich's help, what obstacles remained between idea and execution had been removed . . .

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Diversions :: Spiral Galaxy’s “Cosmic” Influences

The world of Spiral Galaxy extends far beyond music. To mark the release of II, Plastic Crimewave and Sara Gossett look to visionary illustrators, forgotten kosmische explorers, classic album design, and psychedelic cinema, mapping a few of the inspirations behind their singular collaboration . . .

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Big Black :: Two Moonlins And Mother

Before Pharoah Sanders, before Blazing Saddles, before Muhammad Ali's training camp, there was "Two Moonlins And Mother." Big Black's compact boogaloo gem distills a lifetime of rhythm into three minutes of humid, percussive heat . . .

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

Broadcasting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.

Slow dissolve. Kosmische drift. ECM-adjacent. Synth meditations. Folk reveries. Keith Jarrett. Harmonia. Eno. Ashra. Gaussian Curve. Chet Baker. Sybille Baier. CAN. Fellow travelers.

SIRIUS 895: Intro ++ Keith Jarrett – Spirits 6 ++ Aqueduct Ensemble – Borrowed Sax Test ++ Rich Ruth – Taken Back ++ Ezra Feinberg – Ovation ++ Kim Åge Furuhaug – Astogjol ++ Nico Georis – Hot Slots (excerpt) ++ Joys Union Group Cloud Paint ++ Bichin Bajas – Quakenbrück (Version) ++ Lena Platonos – Bloody Shadows From Afar ++ Joel Vandroogenbroeck – Fairy Tale ++ Mark Isham – Raffles In Rio ++ Michael Garrison – To The Other End Of The Sky ++ Harmonia & Brian Eno – Welcome ++ Ashra – Oasis ++ Gaussian Curve – Talk To The Church ++ Between – Devotion ++ Saskia – You Left Your Soul Behind ++ Absent Music – Le Rêve De CJ ++ The Durutti Column – Otis ++ Deux Filles – Drinking At A Stream ++ Brian Eno, Möbius, Roedelius – The Belldog ++ Radiohead – Daydreaming ++ Vincent Gallo – I Wrote This Song For The Girl Paris Hilton ++ Chet Baker – The Touch Of Your Lips ++ Sybylle Baier – Softly ++ Brian Eno – By This River ++ Roberto Musci – Claudia, Wilhelm R And Me++ CAN – Oscura Primavera ++ Amon Düül II – Wie Der Wind Ende Einer Strasse