Adam Amram :: To The End

There is an indescribably New York character to the latest Adam Amram LP, To The End on California’s Nudie Records. Somehow, the album embodies the easygoing yippee humor of Arlo Guthrie, dry wit of Lou Reed, folk exploration of Richie Havens, and the literary curiosity of Dylan or the like–all without being bound by any of it . . .

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Fortunato Durutti Marinetti :: Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter

Fortunato Durutti Marinetti states the sequel to his 2023 jubilant sophomore record Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean is a homage to Anne Carson's book Eros: The Bittersweet. Marinetti calls this style "poetic jazz rock," drawing on the chillness of Donald Byrd and the expansiveness of Robert Wyatt. We'd call it apocalyptic ballroom indie, or: music to imagine yourself slow-dancing as the ship sinks . . .

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Rebecca Schiffman :: Before the Future

Rebecca Schiffman’s fourth album kicks off with a nine-minute epic — a nervy opening move in these days of ever-decreasing attention spans. But it’s a gamble that pays off beautifully, as Before the Future’s remarkable title track unspools like a bittersweet indie flick from the 1990s . . .

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Aquarium Drunkard Book Club :: Chapter 34

Welcome back to the stacks. It’s Aquarium Drunkard’s Book Club, our monthly gathering of recent (or not so recent) recommended reading. In this month’s stack: author Dan Nadel tackles the weird, wild and complicated life and career of iconoclast illustrator of the underground R. Crumb, Marcus J. Moore's deep dive into the D.A.I.S.Y Age of De La Soul and beyond, Lucinda Williams' secrets, Micajah Henley's 33 1/3 rundown of the Clash's 1980 triple LP, Sandinista!, R.E.M. and more . . .

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Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard :: July 2025

Freeform transmissions from Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard on dublab. Airing every third Sunday of the month, RFAD on dublab features the pairing of Tyler Wilcox’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb and Chad DePasquale’s New Happy Gathering. This month, Chad kicks it off an hour of minimalist indie rock & lo-fi art pop and Tyler follows him with some semi-summery moods. (And they’re both paying tribute to the recently departed Brian Wilson and Sly Stone.) Sunday, 4-6pm PT . . .

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Floreana :: Diamond Head (Beach Boys Cover)

As part of When You're Calling Me, an upcoming tribute to the Beach Boys Friends LP coming soon on Passing By Records, Floreana (AKA LA-based musician Victoria Mordoch) tackles “Diamond Head,” one of the album’s two exotica-flavored instrumentals. In her hands, it’s a great dot-connector, taking us from Les Baxter to Stereolab to today’s ambient jazz scene. And she gets there in under two-and-a-half minutes. Something tells me Brian would be pleased . . .

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Videodrome :: Vampire’s Kiss (1988)

From Hollywood A-list leading man to B-movie cult favorite, from Oscar winner to Razzie nominee, Nicolas Cage has made a career out of disappearing into his characters. But characters can just as easily disappear into Cage. Vampire’s Kiss is an exemplary example of the aforementioned, where Cage’s eccentricities become so pronounced that both the actor and character implode inward, forming a caricature that occupies the liminal space between meme and reality . . .

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MJ Lallo :: Before Brazil

The ether has been particularly swampy as of late, but the strange alien sounds of the California-based MJ Lallo have been helping us wade through the thick and uncertain fog. Dig “Before Brazil,” off the vocal artist, poet, and composer’s self-released 1988 album The Channeled Voice - with just her vocal, albeit heavily modulated, and a drum machine, she conjures a hazy club outing that blends dance music, exotica, and new age in a deeply intoxicating and idiosyncratic fashion . . .

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Bandcamping :: Summer 2025

Could this summer get any weirder? Things are tumbling forward in 2025, with the future as unsteady and uncertain as can be. But the great music keeps on coming somehow, making the weirdness more tolerable. For your further explorations (and continued sanity), check out a handful of recent releases that we’re putting on repeat as the mercury rises . . .

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Håvard Volden :: Small Lives

Norwegian musician Håvard Volden is best known for his collaborations with songwriter Jenny Hval, with whom he plays in the experimental art pop group Lost Girls. But with his solo excursion Small Lives, he creates a space where post-rock lulls nestle against jazz structures and subtly anarchic counter melodies. Though the cited influences of early tape composers like Luc Ferrari and madman studio experimentalist Joe Meek might call to mind chopped and spliced takes, Volden maintains a steady organic feel on the title track, a graceful guitar-based drone funk ballad . . .

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

Dubwise summer. 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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Jackie-O Motherfucker :: Flags of the Sacred Harp (20th Anniversary Edition)

There have been few bands in the twenty-first century that have been as thrillingly alive to the history of American music as the shapeshifting Portland, OR free rock ensemble Jackie-O Motherfucker. They paired folk with free jazz, post-rock with Protestant hymnody, New York minimalism with Negro spirituals. The sonic collective unconscious of the United States, in all its strangeness and suffering, seeped through their sound. A welcome twentieth anniversary reissue of their best-loved and most accessible album Flags of the Sacred Harp offers a fresh opportunity to reconsider their inimitable form of musical archaeology . . .

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All One Song :: Meg Baird and Charlie Saufley on “Interstate”

This week, you’re getting two fantastic guests for the price of one: ⁠Meg Baird⁠ and Charlie Saufley. Meg first came to my attention thanks to her work with the innovative Philadelphia psych-folk collective ⁠Espers⁠, and since then she’s created a pretty much flawless solo career — her most recent record, 2023’s ⁠Furling⁠, is a perfect showcase for her pristine guitar work and beautiful vocals. Charlie Saufley co-produced that record with Meg and the duo also played in ⁠Heron Oblivion⁠ with Ethan Miller and Noel Von Harmonson — a group that only managed one studio record during their . . .

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Golden Brown :: Whisker Fatigue

Colorado guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Stefan Beck gets a lot of love around these parts as one-third of Mountain Time motorik outfit Prairiewolf. Fortunately it hasn't been getting in the way of the solo work he puts out under his Golden Brown moniker. The new album Whisker Fatigue practices a rare form of psychedelic austerity, whipping up a heady atmosphere through subtraction. Some might call it ambient, but it is really what happens to acid rock when it is reduced to its essential elements . . .

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Hiroki Tamaki :: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Originally released in 1980, before the Bhagwan had ventured to America to begin the now infamous Oregon ashram and its ill-fated demise, his spiritual teachings reached Hiroki Tamaki in Japan. Compelled to reach far outside his classical training for a full length tribute to the guru, Tamaki lays out a mind altering trip into some confounding musical spaces. An all-you-can-eat buffet of prog-ladened synths, ethereal vocals, spoken word meditations, and pedal to the floor jamming shouldn’t work this well - but damn if it doesn’t . . .

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