Posts

The Lagniappe Sessions :: Jeffrey Silverstein

Songwriter Jeffrey Silverstein joins the Lagniappe Sessions with inspired country funk covers of tunes by Chip Taylor, Steely Dan (via Waylon Jennings), Jim Ford, and Tom T. Hall's immortal "That's How I Got To Memphis . . .

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Michael Naura Quartett :: Call

Hailed at his death in 2017 as the jazzpapst, the pope of German jazz, pianist Michael Naura once fronted the most popular post-bop jazz combo in early 60s Germany. After a serious illness brought his performing career to a halt, he took over editorial management of the state radio NDR's jazz programming in 1971. There Naura had a front-row seat to the birth of fusion. Soon after, he returned to the studio at the head of a newly assembled electric jazz quartet. Their first release, Call, is a moody, shimmering wash of jeweled tones that sounded like . . .

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Charles Moothart :: Black Holes Don’t Choke

As the late Reverend William Sloane Coffin once said in his Blessing of Grace, "the world is too dangerous for anything but truth, and too small for anything but love." Maybe there's only room for loving oneself and the truth of that existence at any given moment. Black holes don't choke; they simply swallow everything into a singularity, to a new way of being. Black Holes Don't Choke is a snapshot of the singularity; go with it awhile and see where it puts you down . . .

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Videodrome :: Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)

Before Lynch and Villeneuve, Alejandro Jodorowsky spent the mid-1970s trying to bring Dune to the screen. Frank Pavich’s documentary examines Jodorowsky’s ill-fated adaptation — what many consider to be the greatest film never made . . .

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Astrid Sonne :: Great Doubt

Great Doubt, the new record by Danish experimental composer Astrid Sonne, carefully applies extended techniques for viola and detuned pianos upon hard, synthesized beats and brass sections, which are then warped into a surreal, narcotic kind of R&B. Her flat and clear-cut vocal delivery highlights the tension building within and behind it, among a digital flora of post-rock orchestration . . .

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Takuya Kuroda :: Rising Son

Rising Son is a ray of regal jazz-funk bliss from start to finish, but the highlight has to be Kuroda’s cover of “Everybody Loves The Sunshine,” sung by José James with the world-weary joy of the Roy Ayers Ubiquity. This reissue closes with a “Sunshine” remix by UK keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones, layering smears of synth and thumping breakbeats over dubby, echo-drenched effects. Blue Note originals have been known to break the bank, so get down with Rising Son on its latest solar cycle . . .

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The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, 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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lake j :: Dizzy

As a member of Chicago rockers Twin Peaks, Cadien Lake James once howled and screeched. As lake j, his mature and confident choices elevante his tracks from rockers to a higher grandeur . . .

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Transmissions :: Vijay Iyer

Pianist, composer, and bandleader Vijay Iyer joins us on Transmissions. He joins host Jason P. Woodbury to discuss his new ECM release, Compassion, his collaborations with Shahzad Ismaily and Arooj Aftab, reflect on the post-pandemic nebulousness in the air, discuss his mentors Greg Tate and Amiri Baraka, and much more . . .

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Soft Power :: Raw Bites

Add Helsinki sextet Soft Power to the growing list of jazz-rock revivalists. On their third album Raw Bites, Soft Power marries krautrock musculature to the jazz dynamics of Canterbury-scene stalwarts like the Soft Machine. But where one might expect fusion excess, Raw Bites delivers a punchy, rollicking album, brimming with riffs and hooks. This band is one to watch . . .

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Bill Orcutt :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Guitarist Bill Orcutt has expanded past genre, throwing blues or jazz or noise into the experimental blender that is his distinct guitar playing. Whether the jagged notes jutting out of his Telecaster, the algorithmic waves made in his open-source synth program, or his layered compositions with the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, he continues to subvert expectations time and time again. Ahead of his live release, Four Guitars Live with the aforementioned group, we sat down with Orcutt, talking about Steve Reich and Phill Niblock, improvisation, and using algorithms to find songs to cover . . .

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Mal Waldron :: The Call

Everybody knows that Mal Waldron was the first artist released by Manfred Eicher's fledgling label ECM. Less well known is that the veteran pianist also had the maiden release on Eicher's experimental jazz imprint JAPO. That album, The Call, placed Waldron right at the heart of the burgeoning krautrock scene, teaming him up with affiliates of Amon Düül, Tangerine Dream and Et Cetera. The result was tripped-out, electrified space jazz of the very highest order . . .

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Patrick Sansone :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Though he's known for his work with Wilco and The Autumn Defense, Pat Sansone embraces wordless vistas and inner/outer cosmic tones on Infinity Mirrors, evoking the work of Steve Roach, Klaus Schulze, and Tangerine Dream. Sansone corresponded with us about his teenage synth fixations, and how photography and mindfulness tie into the expansive spaces of his new album . . .

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Jenny Sorrenti :: Suspiro

Though one may not guess it from the more recent entries of her discography, at one moment, Jenny Sorrenti was deep in the underground annals of psych folk. The Italian songstress may have moved on toward the more madrigal/trad-folk side of things in recent years, but 1976’s Suspiro came barreling forth in sun-drenched pop with a flair for fuzz and grit. And though it has been recognized for its association with Jorma Kaukonen’s brother Peter making an appearance on mandolin and production duties, Sorrenti’s debut deserves the chance to stand on its own merit . . .

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Raul Lovisoni / Francesco Messina :: Prati Bagnati Del Monte Analogo

Prati bagnati del monte Analogo from composers Raul Lovisoni and Francesco Messina was released on the Italian label Cramps in 1979. While nominally a part of the Italian minimalism genre, the music bears more in common with Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, released a year earlier. It’s minimal even by minimalist standards. Messina and Lovisoni were a part of the fertile avant garde scene in Italy . . .

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