Summer beckons. Released in July 1983, Virginia Astley’s From Gardens Where We Feel Secure comes on like a hazy memory preserved on quarter-inch tape. Press play and listen as swallows bank overhead, church bells ring in the distance, and the whole countryside exhales at half-speed . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
For roughly a decade and over five albums, Leah Senior has been making airy, breathy, lightly syncopated folk music. Her songs are delicate but not slight, built on pristine runs of acoustic guitar and cooing, trilling vocals. In this fifth album, however, the Australian singer hints at a broader, more communal palette of sounds . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
Waking up convinced you remember a place you’ve never actually been. Broadcasting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.
SIRIUS 890: Intro ++ Makaya McCraven – Above & Beyond ++ SML – Taking Out The Trash ++ Nala Sinephro – Space 4 ++ Sarathy Korwar – We Take Things For Granted ++ Boards of Canada – Palace Posy ++ Roberto Musci – Claudia, Wilhelm R And Me ++ Nala Sinephro – Space 1 ++ Boards of Canada – Naraka ++ Mike D – True Colors ++ Ben LaMar Gay – Dress Me In New Love ++ Alabaster DePlume – With Your Hands ++ Beak> – Brean Down ++ Juana Molina – Cosoco ++ Betonkust – Sent Items ++ Boards Of Canada – 1969 ++ Virginia Astley – A Long Summer Since Passed ++ Josiah Steinbrick – Full Bloom ++ Anika – Yang Yang (Dub) ++ Holy Tongue – Misinai ++ Broadcast – Corporeal ++ Susumu Yokota – Uchu Yanjyo ++ Tonstartssbandht – What Has Happened ++ Cave – Beaux ++ Düngen – Franks Kaktus ++ Tara Clerkin Trio – In The Room ++ Shrunken Elvis – Marina Pt. 2
On Roomic Cube, musician Takako Minekawa has a deliberate tunnel vision in the counterbalance of the cheerfully buoyant and accompanying comedown. Prior to later collaborations with artists like Jim O'Rourke and guitarist Dustin Wong, Minekawa shared the retrofuturistic "Shibuya-kei" spotlight with like-minded nineties contemporaries like Cornelius and Kahimi Karie. Moving in a cosmic headspace that balances subtle melodicism and electroacoustics with downright playful lyrical repetition, the album's accomplished sound collage is as much a reflection of the canonical microgenre as any other . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
Here to talk about “Berlin” with us today is someone we've been fans of for a long time now—the mighty Matt Valentine. MV has been making beautiful noise for over three decades now, from Tower Recordings to MV & EE (with his partner Erika Elder) to various solo excursions and collabs. For the past decade, Matt’s primary focus has been Wet Tuna, which also features Erika and bassist Jim Bliss. The latest Tuna LP is called Vast — and you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a better title for this collection of strange and funky flights . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
The Hobknobs make fragile, minimal songs with a surreal, philosophical bent. “Dictionary” sounds like the pencil sketch of a Velvet Underground song, the guitars trebly and luminous, a slackly shaken tambourine the only percussion. The words, however, belie the track’s sonic simplicity, exploring the difficult semiotics of signifier and signified in short, plain words . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
Welcome back to the stacks. It’s Aquarium Drunkard’s Book Club, our irregular gathering of recent (or not so recent) recommended reading. In this month’s stack: William Eggleston’s uncanny visions of everyday America; Brian Cullman’s improbable encounters with Nick Drake, Miles Davis, and countless others; the shifting landscapes of Los Angeles through Gavin Lambert and Bret Easton Ellis; and Art Pepper’s Straight Life, one of the most candid memoirs in jazz literature . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
In All The Real Girls, first love collides with dead-end roads, textile mills, and the uneasy realization that growing up may not be enough to escape where you came from. Eric Hehr on David Gordon Green's bittersweet masterpiece . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
A new voice enters the conversation. Enthralling, mysterious, and beautifully disorienting, The Giant is Awkward finds Bark Culture widening its range and sharpening its identity as pianist Sam Yulsman opens new possibilities within the group's sound. It's a significant step forward for a band already operating from a position of uncommon chemistry . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
In our particulate-dense media environment, a decade-plus silence takes on the weight of a gesture in its own right—an invitation to focus, to stay awhile. Structurally, Inferno is less interested in the tension-release of deep raving than in the discursive backroads of a philosophical sci-fi novel . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
Box of Stars sport a mournful air on Walnut Street, their country-folk tinged songs nodding at life's disappointments with gentle resignation. Through spare, rustic arrangements and the ghostly vocal interplay of Macaulay Lerman and Katy Helmann, the band traces relationships, passing years, and ordinary joys that have slipped out of reach . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
On Tough Love, Simon Joyner returns to the unimaginable heartache that shaped 2024’s Coyote Butterfly, though these songs feel less starkly autobiographical and more willing to inhabit other lives and imagined voices. The grief still looms large, especially in the towering title track, but elsewhere Joyner moves through carefully observed vignettes with patience, detail, and a cruel kind of beauty. It’s shattering work, but beautifully presented, with arrangements and performances that never lose sight of the songs beneath the pain . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
Sixteen years on, Anika still feels loosely assembled, held together by bass, space, and the chemistry between Annika Henderson, Geoff Barrow, and the wider Beak> orbit. Recorded quickly and largely live, it arrived already weathered: post-punk stripped to its framework, with vocals seemingly recorded in an adjoining room . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
Described by the musician as her “first album written with a purpose,” Neon Summer Skin moves with quiet confidence through memory, longing, and emotional residue. Reflections on childhood music lessons and formative instruments drift through arrangements that feel expansive without losing intimacy. Rich orchestration and plainspoken storytelling make this a deeply felt return following Bird Songs of a Killjoy . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.
John Peel had a strong case for being the world's foremost champion of musician Robert Wyatt. Both as an admiring fan and personal friend, the legendary BBC disc jockey was always stricken by Wyatt's musical brilliance and singular wit. In addition to the innumerable amount of Peel Sessions with previous pioneering groups Soft Machine and Matching Mole, Wyatt's early seventies solo sets tackle a hodgepodge from his catalogue including charmingly obtuse oddities to the Mellotron aquatic ambiance of 1974's classic solo record Rock Bottom . . .
Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.
To continue reading, become a member or log in.