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The Box Set: An Appreciation, Vol. 2

Box SetsPosted on

The initial standard for a compact disc was 74 minutes. Legend has it the length was decided upon in order to fit all of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony onto a single disc. In terms of format, the arrival and adoption of the CD in 1983 changed not only how we listen to recorded music, but how it’s presented as an art form. No longer beholden to the 22 minute confines of a “12 side, artists began experimenting with the medium… as did labels. Welcome to the second installment of The Box Set: An Appreciation in which things take a . . .

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Jay-U Experience :: Enough Is Enough

Jay-U ExperiencePosted on

With the mercury hitting 91°F here in Los Angeles, our summer crate is calling. At five tracks and under thirty minutes, Enough Is Enough makes no apologies for refusing to hitch its wagon to a single sound, offering instead an unruly sonic free-for-all. And it works. Each track stakes its own claim, from wet rubberband reggae and crunchy, Sabbath-tinged acid rock to loose-limbed jazz-funk and thick Afrobeat heat. Yet somehow(!) the album maintains its aesthetic cohesion. Find a patch of shade and dig the informed chaos. No rules. No boundaries . . .

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The Grateful Dead :: The 1975 Ace’s Sessions (2026 Edition)

Grateful Dead Jerry GarciaPosted on

There are Dead Freaks … and then there are Dead Freaks. If you find yourself in the latter category, point your browser immediately over to the always-excellent Save Your Face blog, where you’ll find a massive collection of rehearsal sessions at Bob Weir’s home studio — Ace’s. It was there that the Grateful Dead holed up in 1975 to dream up their Blues For Allah LP up from scratch. And by massive, we mean it: the tapes total just about 24 hours . . .

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Florian Pellissier Quintet :: Pacifiques Biches

Florian Pellissier Quintet JazzPosted on

Jazz grip. Via Paris, the Florian Pellissier Quintet dropped their fifth long-player, Pacifiques Biches, in the waning days of last year, casting a subtle, if luminous, glow over the tinsel-lit holiday hustle. Echoing the reflective sophistication of 1970s European jazz, the album weaves atmospheric textures and interplay into a nuanced tapestry of understated restraint. Impressively, and this is no small feat, its nine tracks maintain a contemporary edge without slipping into the well-trodden traps of obvious pastiche . . .

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Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard :: March 2026

Radio Free Aquarium DrunkardPosted on

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, Tyler kicks things off with a mix that celebrates a very small sampling of the diverse/eclectic artists playing this year’s Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN. Chad follows it up with a collection of 2026 digs, both new + archival. Sunday, 4-6pm PT . . .

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Scout Gillett :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Scout Gillett The AD InterviewPosted on

“I don't want a record to sound like what everyone else is trying to sound like,” Scout Gillett says, and that means keeping her various inspirations close, allowing Neil Young, Lucinda Williams, and The Deftones to share space in her imagination. Gillett joined us virtually on a sunny Wednesday morning from her home in Los Angeles to discuss her new album, Tough Touch . . .

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Kim Gordon :: PLAY ME

Kim GordonPosted on

Shuddering beats disintegrate, dragging pieces of themselves over rough surfaces, all noise and rhythm and confrontation. Kim Gordon, now on her third album as a solo artist, works again with Justin Raisen, churning up a particularly dirty, distorted variety of hip-hop crossed with indie rock, blitzed by amp buzz and ruptured occasionally by guitar. Over this seething, volatile bed, Gordon chants ominous verses that glance on, but do not explicate, the day’s big questions: AI, climate change, alienation, colonial overreach . . .

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Adiós Augie Meyers: 1940-2026 

Augie MeyersPosted on

On March 7th, musician and producer Augie Meyers passed away at the age of 85. A founding member of the Sir Douglas Quintet and The Texas Tornados with Doug Sahm, Meyers also played with a host of legends, including Bob Dylan, Tom Jones, Tom Waits, and more. Today, we share this remembrance by another artist Meyers collaborated with, songwriter Jerry David DeCicca (who helms our Dollar Diamonds column . . .

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

SIRIUSPosted on

It’s a dream. 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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Greg Belson’s Divine Funk: Rare American Gospel Soul And Funk

Compilation Greg BelsonPosted on

Hit me! Get sanctified, testify, and let it all hang out across a dozen raw Holy Ghost-infused funk and soul jammers where the spirit locks deep in the pocket. Putting in the work, DJ and record collector Greg Belson is the selector, unearthing heavyweight rarities from his personal crates. Originally released in 2021, Divine Funk is back in print as of last year via Cultures of Soul . . .

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The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis :: Deface the Currency

James Brandon LewisPosted on

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis return, for their second collaboration. While their first record dealt in deep grooves and comfortably familiar rhythms, Deface the Currency aims for something noisier, angrier and more invigorating. The guitar takes command, with Anthony Pirog unleashing boiling leads and laying down thickets of distorted drones, while the rhythm section barrels away behind him. Lewis holds his own, sometimes playing fierce counterpoint to Pirog, sometimes bolstering the guitar's attack, and often making his own searing, soaring declarations . . .

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Tokyo Pulse :: Japanese Funk, Modern Soul and City Pop from The Tokyo Scene 1974-88

JapanPosted on

The recent algorithmic explosion of Japanese city pop with Haruomi Hosono, Yoshiko Sai, Masayoshi Takanaka, and others didn't even come close to exhausting the otherworldly fertility of the genre. For the new compilation by international reissue label Wewantsounds, Tokyo-based DJ Notoya selected lost, hidden, and obscured city pop tracks, none of which have quite entered the Western market yet . . .

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Tilaye’s Saxophone With The Dahlak Band ((የጥላዬ ሳክስ ከዳህላክ ባንድ ጋር))

Tilaye GebrePosted on

Released sometime in the late 70s, Tilaye Gebre's album as a featured performer was taken from a one-take, single microphone live recording during their residency at the capital’s Ghion Hotel. Unfolding across nine, slow-burning tracks, the band feels woozily cool, locked in a groove that feels unconscious. There’s a telepathic current running through the players that fashions a sound both nocturnal and bright but a little grizzled by its stripped-down recording texture too . . .

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Even If It’s Flawed or Crooked :: Catching Up With Buck Meek

Buck Meek The AD InterviewPosted on

Buck Meek joins Aquarium Drunkard from his LA-based studio Ringo Bingo, to discuss his latest album The Mirror, his relationship with collaboration and solitude in songwriting, giving himself permission to be uninhibited in frankness, a childhood obsession with Garth Brooks’ Ropin’ The Wind and more . . .

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Stereolab :: Emperor Tomato Ketchup at 30

StereolabPosted on

Thirty years old this month, Stereolab's 1996 breakthrough record Emperor Tomato Ketchup was equal parts transitional and revolutionary. Upon three decades of reflection, the retrofuturism bridgegap keenly foreshadowed the self-coined groop's prolific trajectory, spanning all the way through last year's comeback album Instant Holograms on Metal Film. From borrowing basslines from Gil Scott-Heron to meditative three-word mantras, ETK represented a singular pop/experimental nexus virtually unheard of in its mid-nineties timing, casting a kaleidoscopic umbrella in its influence over endless genres and eras . . .

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