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Aux Meadows :: Draw Near

“Still no reverb (mostly)” — a brief recording note found in the liners for Aux Meadows’ latest, Draw Near. And yet! These 11 gorgeously dusty instrumentals conjure up as many wide-open spaces as any echo-laden cosmic Americana group you might mention. This is the sound of musicians listening to one another, dreaming in real time . . .

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

Outré California. 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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Transmissions :: The Weather Station (2025)

Call it “brain fog,” call it “attention economy burnout,” call it the dregs of late capitalism: however you label it, Tamara Lindeman has been feeling it. With “Neon Signs,” our favorite song from her 2025 album as The Weather Station, Humanhood—out now on Fat Possum Records—she gives names and shapes to the sense of dread so many of us feel permeating our daily existence. This week on Transmissions, she joins host Jason Woodbury to discuss Humanhood—the album, sure, but also the concept of what makes us human . . .

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Jim Putnam :: S/T

California-based indie veteran Jim Putnam has worn just about every hat imaginable in the music industry. This eponymous solo record on French label We Are Unique! recalls the assiduous songwriting from his previous Radar Brothers venture and beyond: a trusty slice of sunbaked comfort. Coming as no surprise, the stark and layered orchestration comes courtesy of the journeyman playing all of the instruments himself . . .

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Mick Turner :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Mick Turner’s guitar playing is instantly recognizable. From his role as the binding agent in the seminal band Dirty Three to his numerous solo albums and now his latest group, the dreamy duo Mess Esque, there’s no other guitar player with Turner’s distinctive sense of rhythm and tone. His sound can be hesitant, composed, jagged, and ragged, yet consistently in command and always compelling. AD caught up with Turner about the artistic blind date that started Mess Esque, how he collaborates with lyricists, his approach for painting versus music, and more . . .

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Keith Jarrett: No End, Newness and the Power of the Low-Key Jam

Keith Jarrett didn’t have to make a rock album filled with noodly guitar and muted boogie. But he did, and in its unusually obvious imperfections, eccentric choices and rambling longueurs, it shows the famously demanding pianist at his most mercurial and relaxed. In his perpetual hunt for wells of inspiration and rivers of feeling, Jarrett’s curious detour still leads to some fascinating backwaters and rewarding reservoirs . . .

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Basic :: Dream City

Hot on the heels of their thrilling debut, Basic is back with Dream City. The Basic formula remains in place, with percussionist Mikel Patrick Avery’s hypnotic electro-acoustic rhythms providing the sturdy foundation for Chris Forsyth to weave fantastical six-string tapestries. It’s far more than just “shredding over the top,” however — in fact, Dream City features some of Forsyth’s most lyrical and imaginative playing, forgoing flash for melody, fireworks for pure texture. This stuff has a pleasingly neverendless feel, like we’re only hearing choice snippets of an eternal jam. Basically beautiful . . .

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Destroyer :: Dan’s Boogie

Over the past decade, Destroyer has shifted seamlessly into middle age. Where restless, lesser artists might have manufactured reinvention narratives or settled into the indie oldies circuit (imagine the money to be made from a Kaputt 15th anniversary tour), Bejar and his muse have kept on truckin’: ken, Have We Met, LABRYNTHITIS, and now Dan’s Boogie. Not career-defining statements, but statements out of which a career is defined . . .

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Jefre Cantu-Ledesma :: Gift Songs

For over 20 years across countless releases and contexts Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has been honing in on the liminal space between sound and silence. His new album Gift Songs feels like the most realized version of this concern. In a time when information overload and short attention spans are at an all time high, Gift Songs feels like a transmission from another place inviting the listener to slow down, take a breath, look around. You'll be glad you did . . .

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Estelle Levitt :: All I Dream

Bronx-born songwriter Estelle Levitt struck gold in 1968 with “All I Dream,” a slice of psychedelic soul and rustic-tinged funk that grooves with the incantatory cadence of a Lee Hazlewood tune. A stormy platter of unrequited love, Levitt’s silky, kaleidoscopic vocals float over a gritty, stalking guitar, swooning strings, and bright, undulating keys. “All I dream is to be in your dream someday,” she sings to a parting lover, “see my face on your clock as the hands chase you on your way . . .

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Videodrome :: Leviathan (1989)

Released in tandem with a plethora of other aquatic-based horror/sci-fi thrillers, George P. Cosmatos’ Leviathan (1989) is a prime example of cinematic micro-trends and the old Hollywood adage, “give us the same, but different . . .

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Radiohead :: The Bends… at Thirty

This month marks thirty years since the release of Radiohead’s sophomore album, and first masterpiece, The Bends. Threatened with relegation to status as one-hit wonders, the Oxfordshire quintet answered the success of Pablo Honey with an album even more infectious and confident than the last, a collection of songs which took the band’s inherent contradictions in stride. In twelve tracks and fifty-eight minutes, The Bends travels the spectrum from oppositional to vulnerable, from artistic to commercial, from alienated to universal and back again—frequently in the same blow . . .

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

Outré California. 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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Jeffrey Lewis :: The Even More Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis

It is probably fitting that Jeffrey Lewis’ visual homage to Dylan’s 1963 second album is a bit of a goof. Lewis remakes the iconic cover in much the same way he’s been remaking literate, ironic folk singing for the last several decades —naked and confrontational and without the slightest instinct for self-protection. The cover, too, is just the beginning. Lewis never saw a cliché or consensus opinion he didn’t want to upend, whether it’s the “do what you love” twaddle of career self-help or the myth of drug-assisted creativity. His venom goes down . . .

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Transmissions :: Lonnie Holley

This week on the show, a long awaited return visit from Lonnie Holley. The Atlanta artist joins us alongside his manager, Matt Arnett, son of William Arnett, the Southern art curator and collector who brought Holley to the attention of the art world in the 1980s. Lonnie and Matt join us ahead of the March 21st release of Holley’s new album, Tonky. Crafted with Irish producer Jacknife Lee (R.E.M., U2, The Killers) and featuring guests like Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, harpist Mary Lattimore, rappers Billy Woods and Open Mike Eagle, spoken word from Saul Williams, and . . .

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