"Funny In Real Life" is the latest cut from the forthcoming self-titled Michael Nau & the Mighty Thread LP. Where lead single, "Less Than Positive," was soaring with Spector-isms, "Funny" finds Nau and company easing off the throttle and settling into a sublime Cadillac groove that we can't . . .
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On 10 Seconds to Collapse, the new full-length collaboration between Tim Rutili of Red Red Meat/Califone and Craig Ross (Shearwater, Lisa Germano, Spoon, Patty Griffin, Robert Plant, Daniel Johnston), the duo tear down and reassemble a set of compositions evoking folk, pop, and psychedelic rock & roll song forms. The resulting eight-song lp is a damaged but nonetheless pleasant listen; a charmingly disorienting spin through dystopic themes. The duo's previous, 2016’s Guitars Tuned to Air Conditioners, was a meditation on electricity and drone, but the new record hews a little closer to Califone's 2013 album, Stitches, which Ross contributed to alongside a wide cast of players assembled by Rutili. Like that album, it borders on the apocalyptic, cutting out familiar scenes which become weirdly revelatory removed from their source. It wasn't a decision per se, but rather a natural development and outgrowth of the two players' friendship.
"It's like a coping mechanism," Rutili says. "That's what we joke about: the darkest, most horrible stuff. Even though it wasn't a conscious effort to make a record about this most horrible time, it just found it's way in there."
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Arizona: On Friday, July 13, Aquarium Drunkard presents a live taping of Desert Oracle Radio at Valley Bar in downtown Phoenix, with the Boxhead Ensemble, Jenny Russell, Jason P. Woodbury, and Brendan Maze. A night of desert stories and music. The radio companion to the quarterly field guide to the American Southwest, Desert . . .
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Back from the dead, Aquarium Drunkard’s bi-monthly dispatch of audio esoterica, interviews, mixtapes and cultural ephemera. Sign up to have it hit your mailbox, here
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"…Robust, delicate, [she] tauntingly charges with the freshness of a child, the discernment of a sage"
— Marge Crumbaker
Born April 2, 1946 in Houston, TX to parents of German descent, Diane Kolbe's family never expected anything of her in life other than to be a singer. Surrounded by music at birth, she grew up in a home inundated with instruments, so gifted with an ear for music that she soon surpassed her teachers and became mostly self-taught at guitar and piano from then on. Weekends were spent alternately going to church on Sundays, or hanging out at the local dance halls the night before, shooting pool and soaking in the music and nightlife. Socially, she was described as being simultaneously both simple and complex, and conversationally talking either non-stop or not at all. After graduating high school, she started playing gigs in the small town of La Grange, situated between Houston and Austin, moving on to bigger cities and even various local political events (Texas state senator John Wilson was a huge fan). At some point, music executive Clive Davis apparently fell head over heels for her voice, and signed Kolby to Columbia Records. Music executives were shocked when she arrived to her first recording sessions, 12-string Fender acoustic and dog, Ginger, in tow, and proceeded to record her self-penned songs with one barefoot on top of a homemade bar of lye soap made for her by elderly friend Bessie Kimble (for luck). Although initially slated to go by the moniker Jancy Lee Tyler, she ended up simply changing her last name from Kolbe to Kolby professionally, releasing her first and only self-titled album in 1973. It contained her only charting single, "Holy Man", peaking at #67 on the U.S. Billboard charts, and charting in other countries as well. The remainder of the album is filled with soaring spiritual songs ("Reincarnation", "Jesus, Oh My Jesus"), mixed with reminiscent love songs ("Once Around The Park"), and songs about the people and places she knew ("Bessie Kimble"). Competently recorded in both Hollywood and Houston by two different producers/arrangers, the album stands out because of the bold, loud, perfectly tuned vocals of it's performer.
Diane Kolby :: Holy Man
Diane Kolby :: Was I The Last Thing On Your Mind
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Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can now be heard every Wednesday at 7pm PST with an encore broadcasts on-demand via the SIRIUS/XM app. Find the Jet Lag mixtape, HERE.
SIRIUS 524: Jean-Michel Bernard — Genérique Stéphane ++ Keith Hudson - Furnace ++ Riz Ortolani - Fino All’ Ultimo Colpo ++ Basabasa Experience - Konya ++ Ambassadeur International - Mandjou ++ Grupo Irakere - Bacalao Con Pan . . .
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Five songs into African Scream Contest 2 comes one of the greatest recorded screams I’ve ever heard.The Picoby Band D’Abomey have just begun to play “Mé Adomina,” a track built around a loping surf groove and a lazy shaker that suggests almost anything besides ecstatic fits of joy. And then the singer gets free. He lets loose a blood-curdling howl that immediately redlines the song and that’s probably still resounding in the Beninese city where it was recorded. It is a wild thing, a shriek of joy, truly an entrant in the hall of fame of great rock ’n’ roll screams. Move over, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
It’s such a powerful shout that it shakes you into realizing that it’s the first of its kind on this two-LP compilation of afro-funk from Benin. The modest yelp that caps the North African lullaby of Elias Akadiri and Sunny Black’s Band’s “L’enfance” notwithstanding, the contested screams here aren’t being laid down by the musicians; it’s that the musicians are competing to make the listener scream.
And there’s a lot to scream about on African Scream Contest 2, the sequel to the legendary 2008 compilation of the same name put together by ace crate-digger Sam Ben Redjeb, the former flight attendant behind the Analog Africa label. Like its older brother, 2 makes the case for the vitality and richness of the music scene in Benin, a country whose musical legacy is greatly overshadowed by its Nigerian neighbors to the east and, to a lesser degree, by Ghana to the west.
African Scream Contest Vol.2 - Benin 1963-1980 by Various
The sounds here are immediately familiar, but reveal unexpected complexities: Les Sympathics de Porto Novo kick things off with a zamrock-worthy lead guitar before segueing into a loose afrobeat pattern, l’Orchsetre El Rego spangles a stutter-stepping afro-cuban jam with tinny synths and soul-jazz organ, the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou play chanting Ghanaian disco from deep pocket grooves while the vocals shift into wispy calls-and-responses that sound more like Tuareg vocal melodies than the sounds typically associated with West Africa. It suggests that Benin’s musicians soaked up everything that came near them and then some, a kind of accidental melting pot of sound.
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In 2012 we intercepted two hours of Jet Lag -- the radio program hosted by Yoon Nam -- which ceased airing three years ago following an inspired decade-long run on Atlanta’s 88.5 fm. Earlier this year we caught up with Nam as she put together the following two-hour mix amidst a visit . . .
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“I Wanna Know,” the lead-off track from Philadelphia singer-songwriter Rosali’s fantastic new Trouble Anyway LP, floats along for five minutes on just two hypnotic chords. You might be reminded a bit of Stevie Nicks’ moody Tusk-era dreamscapes — though Paul . . .
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Lou Reed tried to sell us on a Harlem heroin score being cool, even if he was feeling “more dead than alive.” Tina Harvey went to the same dealer, but she was just jonesing. Gone is the jangly swagger of the Velvets uptown jaunt - she and her band tear a blister across the cover, slipping on the worn out steps of the old brownstone, grasping perilously against the stair railing. The guitar picks away quietly but aggressively in the background, coursing in and out of the slamming rhythm. On the back-half, a chorus of Lovin’ Spoonful-esque ahh’s . . .
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Based on my limited interactions with the mysterious songwriter, Liam Hayes doesn't do anything half-heartedly. That much is clear from his records, like 2002's Fed and 2014's Korp Sole Roller, two chunks of magnificently realized pop. Recently reissued by Be With Records, the albums are the results of fine songcraft, intensely long hours logged in the studio, and uncompromising vision.
But there's also his dedication to living extremely offline. No Twitter account, no Facebook, not even text or emails. You wanna interview Hayes? You gotta know someone who knows someone (in this case, producer and Wilco sideman Pat Sansone), type up some interview questions, send them on over and wait for scanned, type-written pages to show up.
It would be easy to chock all this up to savvy mystique cultivation or the reclusive genius routine. But I think there's something deeper at work. Whether crafting ambitious soundtracks (A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III) or looser, more freewheeling projects (like 2015's Slurrup), Hayes adheres primarily to his own exacting standards.
It's those standards that made Fed an underground legend, a set of songs too sprawling to work within the Chicago indie rock economy of the early 2000s, but too catchy and beautifully built to escape the attention of dedicated record heads who heard in its grooves traces of Isaac Hayes, the Beatles, Todd Rundgren, and Burt Bacharach. Finally circulating alongside its spiritual cousin Korp Role Roller, Fed stands a better chance of being recognized this time around, though Hayes mostly comes across as bemused about his prospects at best.
Hayes is currently at work on two new lps, Mirage Garage and Pink Sunglasses, but dedicated some time at the typewriter for this exclusive exchange with Aquarium Drunkard.
Aquarium Drunkard: You don’t interact with social media or even text. What’s the rationale there? Beyond the benefits of, you know, not having your personal data hijacked and sold by and to monolithic entities, what’s the appeal of not being connected through these avenues?
Liam Hayes: My decision to not participate in mediated sociality (newfangled software and behavioral science, old-fashioned mass exploitation) is not some quaint exercise in disengagement from the world. The reward for my non-compliance has been isolation both personally and professionally. I think it's important to give more than just a cursory glance at the serious questions about exactly what the surveillance economy is, and its negative effects on human beings. How do you feel laboring as an unpaid cultural producer on an electronic assembly line every second of every day?
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On her debut album for Autumn Tone Records, Lake Tear of the Clouds, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Cornelia Murr follows the journey of water from the highest point in the Adirondack Mountains (as referenced by the album's title) to the valley below and out to sea. Like water, Murr's words, voice, and stories flow, propelled by an easy momentum that moves them along their journey with balance and grace. Produced by Jim James ofbecome a member or log in.
And we’re back. Welcome to the May edition of the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions podcast, our recurring series of conversations and audio esoterica. On this program, we’re joined by singer/songwriter Gillian Welch. Along with her partner David Rawlings, Welch has tapped into the wellspring of American vernacular music. Her masterful albums – including 2001’s Time (The Revelator) and 2011’s The Harrow & the Harvest – are part of one of the strongest bodies of work in the modern folk music canon. Welch is about to hit the road with Rawlings, embarking on a series of “An Evening With” dates June through October, and this summer sees the vinyl reissue of her 2003 LP Soul Journey. We spoke to Welch via phone about her attention to the long player, album-length statement, and how it's resulted in such fine lps.
Then, we have a review of the release by the Shinya Fukumori Trio, For 2 Akis by writer and Footfalls Records founder Leah Toth; released by the stalwart ECM label, the new release unites players from France, Germany, and Japan for a quiet, but subtly immersive new album, produced by ECM mastermind Manfred Eicher.
And to close out this month’s episode, a conversation recorded live backstage with guitarist and composer Marisa Anderson. She’s one of the most engaging solo players in the field today, blending blues, folk, and country forms into political and personal statements. On June 15, she releases her debut for Thrill Jockey Records, Cloud Corner. A meditative and peaceful album, the record serves as a respite from the constant noise of our modern times. We spoke with Anderson about the need for those kinds of musical spaces, the influence of science fiction on her work, and her subversive reinterpretations of traditional and public domain music.
Transmissions Podcast :: Gillian Welch/Shinya Fukumori Trio/Marisa Anderson
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Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can now be heard every Wednesday at 7pm PST with an encore broadcasts on-demand via the SIRIUS/XM app.
SIRIUS 523: Jean-Michel Bernard — Genérique Stéphane ++ Alex Chilton - Jumpin’ Jack Flash ++ Little Ed & The Soundmasters - It’s A Dream ++ Howlin’ Wolf - Smokestack Lightning ++ Rikki Ililonga - Fire High ++ Shintaro Sakamoto - From The Dead ++ Bob Marley (Dylan Tate Interview) ++ Luis Melodia - Baby Rose ++ Yo La Tengo - Esportes Casual ++ Fumio Nunoya - Mizu Tamari ++ Yaphet Kotto — Have You . . .
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Lagniappe (la ·gniappe) noun ‘lan-ˌyap,’ — 1. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. 2. Something given or obtained as a gratuity or bonus.
On her recent album Angeles of Death, singer/songwriter Jennifer Castle feels out the concept of grief, turning it over like a wet stone in her hand. It's a remarkable record, both pained and celebratory, the work of a writer whose words are direct and sharp.
"It mourns and it celebrates, embracing the transformation of time, the eternal constellation of growth and decay and growth again," our own Chad DePasquale wrote in his AD review. "Like some sacred text, it is a scriptural paean to the loved ones lost and the indelible mark they’ve left on our lives." For her second Lagniappe Session, Castle selects two songs with similarly poignant lyrics, Bob Marley's "Stand Alone" and Brooke Benton's "I Got What I Wanted."
Jennifer Castle :: Stand Alone (Bob Marley)
"Stand Alone” by Bob Marley and the Wailers (1971) is a perfect heartache song. Reggae is the best during the Canadian winter to help motivate general living, with its inherent messages of power, endurance, love, and positive resistance. I love this song as it focuses in on the dilemma of blame. The Wailers carry it all by their special backing vocals, and the melody gives me heart-stoppage each time.
Jennifer Castle :: I Got What I Wanted (Brooke Benton)
I found an old mixtape tape recently while trying to record on my four-track for this session; it was a mixtape from 2006-ish when my friend Davida Nemeroff (who took the Angels of Death cover shot, and made the “Texas" video) lost her dog to a streetcar accident. She had a gathering in the park to commemorate her dog, which ended up being young Toronto versions of ourselves on blankets, swaying drunk in the summer, singing along to a small handheld tape player (RIP Beatrice: Too Young To Die). This song (from 1963) was on that tape, but it was the Ted Hawkins version (incredible).
It was nice to hear it again recently. I hadn’t listened to it since those days, but I started to sing it like an old familiar around the house last month. Then I remembered Woolly Leaves used to sing it (Will Kidman from the Weather Station’s solo stuff) and it reminded me of that time too, 'cause we used to hang out a lot back then 'cause I hung with the Constantines a lot, and he is in the Cons. Victoria was roommates with Will at that time back then too. Will and Davida were best friends. When I brought it up to sing for these sessions Victoria and I reminisced about the good old days like a perfect jam will allow one to do. A great tune about regret that gets swaying blanket people singing together. Love how Victoria’s vocals chime in at the very end like a broken-hearted drunk angel alone at a table, who finally lifts her head to sing along, just as the song is done. Closing time, etc. Regret touches us all.
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