Video Age :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

New Orleans duo Video Age are associated with rhythmic, dream pop pallette, but with their latest album Away from the Castle, songwriters Ross Farbe and Ray Micarelli augment new wave gloss with a heavy dose of tuneful, guitar-based pop—think Real Estate in a particularly sunny mood or Whitney on a heavy Beatles kick. With all that jangle and strum comes a rededication to their core friendship, complete with "Better Than Ever," a number that works like a platonic love song . . .

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Aquarium Drunkard :: Mailbag, Vol. VI

Long time reader, first time caller? Welcome to Mailbag, our monthly column in which we dig in and respond to your questions. Got a query? Hit us up at aqdmailbag@gmail.com. In this month’s bag: a grip of essential mixtapes, jazz tomes, and overcoming listening burnout . . .

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Transmissions :: Buck Meek (Big Thief)

You know Buck Meek from Big Thief and his solo albums, like this year’s Haunted Mountain. Full of near-death experiences and tender but insistent roots-inspired songwriting, it’s an album that finds inspiration in the mysterious Mount Shasta, long a site of high strangeness. He joins us to discuss Jolie Holland, Judee Sill, Bob Dylan, Big Thief and reciprocity this week on Transmissions . . .

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Joseph Shabason :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

If you’ve ever stepped foot on a skateboard, you’re in the club for life. For Toronto-based saxophonist Joseph Shabason, this revelation provided the inspiration for his latest project: a new album-length score for the classic 1996 skate video, Toy Machine’s Welcome To Hell. With the blessing of company founder, pro skater, and visual artist Ed Templeton (who also provided album art), Shabason’s Welcome To Hell is a passion project dating back to his formative childhood memories . . .

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BCMC :: Foreign Smokes

Bill MacKay and Cooper Crain run in the same Chicago circles, MacKay tilting, maybe, a little further towards folk and blues and Crain of Bitchin Bajas and Cave leaning harder into krautish experimental drone. There’s certainly plenty of common ground, however, judging from this four-track collaboration, as both work to find magic in still, pooling reservoirs of sound that do not move so much as they glisten in unearthly light . . .

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Mark Mothersbaugh :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

On the eve of the new 4-LP Devo retrospective, Mothersbaugh caught up with us from his Los Angeles studio. We discuss the experimental beginnings and future of Devo, the group working with Brian Eno and David Bowie, his fascination with early animation soundtracks, auditioning for Mick Jagger, the NYC scene that brought the band’s breakthrough, the death of the album format and much more . . .

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Bonus Tracks, Vol. 6 :: Talking Heads, Dusty Springfield, John Martyn

We’re breaking out our Case Logic compact disc wallets once again to dig out some of the best bonus tracks from days gone by. This time around, we’ve got visionary Albionic reveries, soothing soul pop and the big band version of Talking Heads burning down the house . . .

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Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell :: Begonias

File under: autumnal albums. Released eighteen years ago, Caitlin Cary and Thad Cockrell's sole collaboration continues to pay dividends, and as collections of duets go, Begonias has rightly earned its place as a modern day classic. Mellow and contemplative in approach, the pair's vocals ache and yearn as Cockrell's tenor tangles with Cary's alto. A traditional country album with a capital T. Now if they would only make another . . .

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: H. Hawkline

This week's installment of the Lagniappe Sessions catches up with Welsh singer-songwriter Huw Evans who, under the guise of H. Hawkline, has released five records over the past thirteen years. Evans most recent effort, the excellent Cate Le Bon produced LP, Milk For Flowers, dropped earlier this year and the following session acts as a sort of companion set. Expect: unexpected covers of covers, hi-fi nods to Cleaners From Venus, and the majesty of Yoko Ono . . .

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Liam Grant :: Amoskeag

Emerging as wood-and-steel road warrior over the last couple years, Liam Grant is a journeyman pupil of the guitar soli dharma emanating from the Takoma school and beyond. With Amoskeag, Grant carves his own path through roving distances of hard-driving, raga-infused guitar excursions, ultimately arriving somewhere that feels like home. Born of a year’s incessant touring, the six extended compositions on his second full-length release are reverent contemplations of time, memory, and place, coursing with the ancestral spirits of Grant’s native New England and the melodic traditions of country bluegrass, ragtime, and blues . . .

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Allegra Krieger :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

New York’s Allegra Krieger has had quite the year. The cosmic folk artist released her fourth studio album, I Keep My Feet On The Fragile Plane, in July via Double Double Whammy. Across its 10 tracks, Krieger sings measured soliloquies recounting her memories, observations, and curiosities straddling the mortal and divine. Finger-picked guitars float like sunlight, illuminating forgotten corners of the universe where Krieger finds inspiration . . .

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Jonathan Kirby :: Safe To Disconnect II

A dedicated crate-digger, Jonathan Kirby co-hosts Dogpatch, one of the greatest music podcasts going, with fellow traveler Dante Carfagna. Kirby’s music occasionally sounds like something the duo might share on Dogpatch — some well-nigh unbelievable slice of homemade sonic alchemy, with warm vintage keys and drum machines, gentle (if not exactly mellow) oscillations and rippling melodies. Fans of the essential Personal Space: Electronic Soul 1974-1984 comp — which Carfagna compiled, not-so-coincidentally — will fall in love with the Safe To Disconnect series at first spin . . .

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Andrew Savage :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Andrew Savage joins Aquarium Drunkard to discuss his new record, Several Songs about Fire, moving to Paris, poetry, and touring with Cate Le Bon . . .

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

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

34.1090° N, 118.2334° W . . .

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Alex Sadnik :: Flight

One of this year’s best straight-ahead jazz sessions…though maybe most straight-ahead jazz sessions don’t prominently feature pedal steel guitar. Alex Sadnik’s Flight takes on the work of Charlie Parker—every alto saxophonist’s white whale—and manages to make it all sound fresh again . . .

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