Posts

Jim White :: A Banner Year

Let’s hear it for Jim White! The drummer has been having a hell of a year. He got back together with the Dirty Three, he released his first solo album, the playful/absorbing All Hits: Memories; he put out a new duo record with the fantastic guitarist Marisa Anderson; he showed up on Ned Collette, Bill Callahan and Myriam Gendron’s latest masterpieces. And just this month, the Hard Quartet released their excellent s/t debut.

To celebrate Jim’s sound, dig into a small sampling of tracks that the drummer has appeared on over the past several months . . .

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Jamaica to Toronto: Soul, Funk & Reggae 1967-1974

Light in the Attic is set to reissue their stellar 2008 compilation of Caribbean-influenced music from the late 60s and early 70s Toronto music scene as selected and annotated by Kevin “Sipreano” Howes. This new, deluxe pressing comes with a 20-page booklet featuring detailed bios, essays, and archival photos that further reveal the backstage of this extremely fecund scene of soul, funk, disco, R&B, and reggae . . .

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Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard :: October 2024

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 things off with a moody, drifting mix of avant-garde, ambient music, downtempo pop & soul. Wilcox follows it up with a selection of 2024 tracks that all feature Dirty Three drummer extraordinaire Jim White. Sunday, 4-6pm PT . . .

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Chu Kosaka :: Arigato

Chu Kosaka’s Arigato is wide-open pastoral bliss. The natural extension of Happy End with a bit more of a singer-songwriter orientation, Kosaka pieces together what could be the finest example of American country rock through the lens of a Japanese perfectionism. Don’t let that fool you. The tunes are loose . . .

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Adele Sebastian :: Desert Fairy Princess

The lone album from Adele Sebastian, a member of Horace Tapscott’s Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra who died way to young, Desert Fairy Princess looks back at the fundamentals of spiritual jazz even as it blazes its own path. Sebastian, a flutist and occasional singer, cedes the spotlight to other composers and her band on her debut as a leader, showcasing her belief in community, conversation and group interplay. The result is a small masterpiece of open-hearted introspection and playful challenge, a declaration of faith and a question left unanswered. Like Tapscott’s Ark, it carries a message . . .

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Office Culture :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Inspired by a dream in which he produced a CD called Enough, the latest from Office Culture signals a shift in songwriter/producer Winston Cook-Wilson's whip smart songcraft: employing a wide cast of collaborators, including guest appearances by Alena Spanger, Sam Sodomsky's The Bird Calls, and Jackie West, he turns his attention to rhythms, textures, and mood, creating mini-movies with each of the album's 16 songs. From clanking, layered polyrhythms, to melodious fretless bass, to pensive piano ballads, it's a dynamic listen that feels as personal as it does ambitious . . .

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Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980)

The late 1970s were a good time for Joni Mitchell’s music. The latest volume of the Joni Mitchell Archives series focuses on this period through demos, outtakes, and live recordings. It’s not a complete picture, but it’s one that helps explain how a folk singer from the Canadian prairies came to work with jazz heavyweights and write lyrics for a Charles Mingus standard . . .

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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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Styrofoam Winos :: Real Time

Styrofoam Winos—the Nashville-based trio of Lou Turner, Trevor Nikrant, and Joe Kenkel—follow up their 2021 self-titled debut with Real Time, an endearing and invigorating collection of shaggy southern rock and dusty, woolen folk. With a lo-fi, ambling ease, they cruise through road-weary choogles; swampy, faded funkers; harmonica swept confessionals; and meditative, noodling jaunts through the passage of time . . .

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Thine Retail Simps :: Strike Gold, Strike Back, Strike Out

While the future is uncertain, the present is most decidedly not. In Strike Gold, Strike Back, Strike Out Thine Retail Simps have made one of the weirdest, most discontinuous, jokiest rock and roll records of the year—and one of the best . . .

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Transmissions :: Frosty and Hermanos Gutiérrez

This week on the show, we're joined by three guests—though, not all at once. In the first half of the show: Mark “Frosty” McNeill of dublab and the LA Phil to discuss a new compilation he helped produce, Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971​-​1996; in the second-half of the show, Estevan and Alejandro Gutierrez, better known as Hermanos Gutiérrez just us to discuss their latest album of spacey guitar instrumentals, Sonido Cosmico . . .

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Sun Araw :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Sun Araw's Cameron Stallones doesn't stick to one mode. Since 2007, he's exercised extreme artistic freedom, creating tapestries of experimental pop, zoned-out soundscapes, MIDI-symphonies, and dub-inflected synthscapes. On his 10th album, Lifetime, he spent years manipulating his bandmates' contributions digitally, blending improv and post-production, resulting in a florid space of clapping drums, guitar scrawls, and oozy synths, all aided by sunny, yacht rock ready melodies. He joins us to discuss the record, as well as his collaborations with legends like Laraaji and The Congos . . .

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Oscar Peterson :: Romance (1954)

Our 'Midnite Jazz' series continues with an often overlooked release from Oscar Peterson's mid-fifties output. Romance features the decorated jazz pianist stepping in front of the microphone for his vocal debut, softly crooning his way through standards and ballads with pure class and cozy intimacy . . .

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Christopher Owens :: I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair

It’s been long enough. There’s no need to play coy, no sense in waiting any longer than we already have. I’ll state it plainly here at the top: this is the album we’ve been waiting for Christopher Owens to make for over a decade. I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair is an extraordinary, wholly unexpected achievement, as bold and beautiful and great as any one of the immortal Girls records.

It may, in fact, be better . . .

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Videodrome :: In Conversation with Sara Gran on The Legacy (1978)

For a special "Halloween edition" of the VIDEODROME column, we sat down with author and screenwriter Sara Gran to discuss The Legacy (1978). It's a rollicking conversation about the film's impact on Gran's life and work, satanic cabals, psychoanalysis, and much more . . .

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