For the latest entry into our ‘Midnite Jazz’ series, we take a trip back to Manhattan circa 1954 and find a twenty-one-year-old Quincy Jones embarking on his first studio gig as an arranger for Helen Merrill’s eponymous debut album . . .
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Welcome back to the stacks. It’s Aquarium Drunkard’s Book Club, our monthly gathering of recent (or not so recent) recommended reading. In this month’s stack: a guide to Krautrock, Lucy Sante’s sermons for Bob Dylan, plot twist poetry, and tomes devotes to Alan Vega of Suicide and The MC5 . . .
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Rogê is steeped in bossa nova tradition, building lush, rhythmically restless compositions that are light as air but resonant with feeling. Here in his second U.S. released solo album, the Brazilian native now living in LA, pays tribute to the genre’s masters, covering João Donato’s "A Rã," “A Força,” from his collaborative album with Seu Jorge and “Lendo Do Abaeté” a song made famous by Dorival Caymmi, while also taking the form in new directions with original material . . .
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Phil Elverum emerges from unimaginable loss in Night Palace, returning from relentless (and understandable) exploration of his own wrenching experiences to consider again the largeness of the natural world, the purpose of art and human transience. This larger scope extends not just through the lyrics, but into the sound of this double album, which throws off the limitations of poetic, minimalist, lyric-focused indie folk and dallies with rock, drone, free improv, country and black metal . . .
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As the electric keys of the "Untitled Dirge" minisuite kicks off A Willed and Conscious Balance, it's evident that Tomin Perea-Chamblee's shapeshifting palette expands upon his own woodwind arrangements, transmuting an orchestral symmetry with the record's ensemble. It's a record with an ever-evolving framework, conveying the essence of canonical free jazz entities with a set of signifiers that sounds ambivalently modern . . .
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LA based post-rock quartet Bondo returns with their sophomore LP, Harmonica. Recorded live to tape by engineer and producer JooJoo Ashworth, Harmonica conveys an organic sensibility that only a live band can communicate. There is a tightness, a musical understanding through technique and dynamics with an added dimension of nuance - some improv, and the happy accidents that can only come from four people playing together live . . .
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Though he's been playing for years, Fortune's Mirror, released by the esteemed VDSQ imprint, is Barry Johnson's proper instrumental debut, and has the distinction of possibly being the most "California" sounding solo guitar record to come out since Will Ackerman's first few albums for Windham Hill . . .
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Though he's best known for his work in thrash metal band Skeletonwitch, guitarist SW Hedrick sets his sights on more pastorale zones with Devotional Drift: Vol. 1. A collection of meditative guitarscapes and consciousness-expanding grooves, the album was recorded at Scott Hirsch's Ojai studio Echo Magic (Hirsch mixed the album, too). Devotional Drift finds Hedrick evoking Fripp, Fricke, Göttsching, Rother et al, but it's no mere pastiche; nor is it overly monastic . . .
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Broadcasting from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery … The Aquarium Drunkard Show. The Halloween edition, Wednesday night / 7pm California time. SIRIUS/XM ~ Channel 35 . . .
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Existing in a dusty space between shambolic whimsy and rock solid songwriting, the experience of a Baggett record is one in which the stalwart musician crafts his own classic rock fantasy. Like an afternoon drive through a seaside beach town, Waves of a Begull delivers the washed out guitar rompers you need this year . . .
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This week on the show, a double-header. First, Rosali Middleman, and then, her bandmate, collaborator, and the leader of Mowed Sound, David Nance. Together, they both play on Rosali’s fantastic 2024 album, Bite Down. This week on Transmissions, they open up about their collaborative process in two individual interviews . . .
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"It's almost a Biblical connection." Today at Aquarium Drunkard, Jason Pierce, aka J Spaceman, discusses Harmony Korine, Jim Dickinson, and his new soundtrack to William Eggleston's 1974 documentary Stranded in Canton, released this week on Fat Possum Records . . .
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An American Werewolf in London straddles the line between comedy and horror without ever tipping the scale too far in either direction. Tonally, it’s a maverick balancing act, and this tightrope walk between laughs and screams makes it an enduring example of gateway horror . . .
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Earlier this year saw the return of Rich Ruth via the Nashville based artist's third long-player, Water Still Flows, an album we described as "absolutely audacious in its musical fusions and amalgamations... a woozy kaleidoscope of spiritual jazz, post-rock, chiming minimalism, Berlin school synth sequencers, metal and drone." For this installment of the Lagniappe Sessions, Michael Ruth and co. reimagine the Boognish via a cover of Ween's "A Tear For Eddie," and take on Black Sabbath outlier "Planet Caravan," via the band's sophomore effort, 1970's Paranoid . . .
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What does an American Halloween in the year of our lord 2024 sound like? Everyone rings in the spooky season differently. Some people want some melancholy goth rock, others need novelty record exploitation trash. Some people want to draw the shades and build Berlin school synthesizer cathedrals in the air. And some just need to howl 'Werewolves of London' at the top of their lungs. It's all good. We asked some of the contributors to tell us how they're soundtracking All Hallows. What we got back comprises a monster playlist suitable for apple-bobbing, axe-sharpening and keeping . . .
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