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Big Bend :: Last Circle In A Slowdown

Big BendPosted on

The third album from pianist/singer Nathan Phillips’ Big Bend project blends experimental methods with time-tested tradition. Working with avant-jazz master Shahzad Ismaily and a varied ensemble including Jen Powers of Rolin/Powers Duo and violinist Zosha Warpeha, Phillips transforms delicate folk songs into strange collages and elliptical ballads. At times reminiscent of the fluid, gauzy extrapolations of Talk Talk, Last Circle in a Slowdown might have more in common with Joan of Arc’s controversial ProTools workout The Gap. But Big Bend doesn’t embrace the alienation that comes with such studio manipulation and digital disruption, instead . . .

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Television :: CBGB, Early 1975

Live Upload Series TelevisionPosted on

A hack Hollywood filmmaker would likely use cliched/corny smash cuts to convey the kinetic energy of NYC’s burgeoning mid-seventies punk scene. The tapes tell a different story, with history unspooling at a leisurely pace. These audience recordings of Television at CBGB during a long winter residency at the club — dangerously lo-fi, utterly priceless — are full of awkward tuning breaks, persistent amplifier hum, muttered introductions, cacophonous false starts, muted applause. Something’s happening here, but no one is quite sure what it is . . .

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Nyron Higor :: S/T

Nyron HigorPosted on

Nyron Higor's self-titled sophomore LP starts with a slow-motion frevo that drags amidst the reverb as if it was played inside a ghost motel. It is a perfect encapsulation of the Brazilian multi-instrumentalist's new release: clouds of sonic niceties sculpted from the ruins of library music. Here, bird-like whistles and tremolos emerge into eerie atmospheres, from which they seem detached, like ground and figure . . .

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Johnny Coley :: Mister Sweet Whisper

Johnny ColeyPosted on

Like some strange offspring of William Burroughs and Chet Baker backed by The Lounge Lizards, Birmingham, Alabama’s Johnny Coley delivers southern gothic beat poetry in a leathery, slurring wobble on Mister Sweet Whisper. His words, backed by a group of local young musicians from the Sweat Wreath label on guitar, upright bass, vibraphone, saxophone, and organ, are lysergic and hallucinatory incantations–nocturnal, perverse, slithering, and hilarious . . .

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

SIRIUSPosted on

Rolled chords. 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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The Weather Station :: Humanhood

The Weather StationPosted on

Tamara Lindeman is the Weather Station, for all intents and purposes, so what’s remarkable about her seventh album is how she slips into the mix. She flutters and flourishes like a wild jazz flute. She eddies and cascades in slithery runs. She matches the syncopated stop-go of a piano run, her voice just off center enough to be interesting. She spits out knotty strings of striking imagery. But she does it all as another instrument in a breezy, jazzy mix, as significant but no more so than complicated patterns of percussion, sharp outbursts of flute and cloudier eruptions . . .

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David Michael Moore :: Selections from Umburkus Returns

David Michael MoorePosted on

Umburkus Returns presents 74-year-old Southern woodworker and DIY composer David Michael Moore at his most expansive, featuring avant-Americana percussion soundscapes, holy meditations, and horndog reveries . . .

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A Picnic Of Sorts :: Mobile

A Picnic Of SortsPosted on

A marvel of sweet synthesizers, field recordings, and beyond, A Picnic Of Sorts’ debut compact disc envelops the listener in a subtly immersive ambient landscape. Mobile sounds fantastic in any listening situation — through headphones, turned up loud to fill the room, or (best of all maybe) as the soundtrack to a long drive with no particular destination in mind . . .

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Steven R. Smith :: Triecade

Steven R. SmithPosted on

With his new album, Triecade, Los Angeles-based guitarist, artist and composer Steven R. Smith marks three decades of releasing music. Since his early days amidst the Jewelled Antler collective, Smith has put out some fifty records under half a dozen different monikers. Taken in its totality, his catalog comprises an almanac of forgotten countries, ruined cities and faded empires, a sketchbook of improbable flora and fauna. It is one of the most enchanting and labyrinthine discographies in modern American music . . .

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Bonnie “Prince” Billy :: The Purple Bird

Will OldhamPosted on

The Purple Bird is more overtly country than the last few Bonnie “Prince” Billy albums, certainly more so than the droning, mesmeric Lungfish homage in Hear the Children Sing the Evidence from 2024 or even the campfire folk communal Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You from 2023. Of course, threads of rural traditions in country, bluegrass and shape not singing have always woven through Oldham’s work, so it’s not a dramatic departure. Still, this is an album made in Nashville with Nashville musicians and a celebrated Nashville producer, and the twang factor is high . . .

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

SIRIUSPosted on

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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Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks :: Pig Lib

Stephen MalkmusPosted on

Despite a slew of great tunes, Stephen Malkmus’ self-titled, post-Pavement debut felt restrained, reining in his more extreme tendencies. This is in stark contrast to the follow up record, 2003’s Pig Lib. Credited to Malkmus and the Jicks, this is the first record where SM is thinking of himself as a member of the rock band The Jicks. And as a Jick, Malkmus can to lean into his extremes (guitar indulgence, poetic weirdness), and it shows . . .

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Tree Rings as Fingerprints :: Derek Piotr & Scott Solter on Fieldwork Archive

Derek Piotr Fieldwork ArchivePosted on

Folklorist Derek Piotr recently issued his 1,000th field recording. Alongside his own solo work, he's overseen the Derek Piotr Fieldwork Archive since 2020—a collection of field recordings that mostly showcase what Piotr dubs a “non-singer”: someone with no background in vocal performance who nevertheless sings a folk song as remembered through oral tradition . . .

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Sun Ra & His Arkestra :: Kingdom of Discipline

Sun Ra Sun Ra ArkestraPosted on

There's always so much Sun Ra music to experience. But even among all the riches, Dead Currencies' Ra comp Kingdom of Discipline is a special piece: released in an edition of 75, it speaks to Ra as an independent media pioneer as much as a jazz composer . . .

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Ralph Towner :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Ralph Towner The AD InterviewPosted on

As a member of the pioneering chamber/world/GORP jazz group Oregon, as a solo artist and leader or co-leader, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/composer Ralph Towner has been making wide-ranging, pigeonhole-defying music for more than half a century. Speaking to Aquarium Drunkard from his home in Rome, Towner was happy to look back at a few of the many highlights of his remarkable and varied career, from including but not limited to all-night concerts in the ‘70s, an impromptu jam session with Sonny Rollins, his jazz-snob regrets, kicking Bill Evans off the piano, looking for . . .

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