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All One Song :: Zachary Cale on “Ambulance Blues”

All One Song Neil Young PodcastPosted on

We have got a doozy of a Neil Young song to talk about today — “⁠Ambulance Blues⁠." First appearing as the closing track on Neil’s 1974 masterpiece On the Beach, this is one of the man’s major works, a long, dark dirge that surveys the surreal mid-1970s landscape, from Patty Hearst to Richard Nixon, all accompanied by a brilliantly skeletal musical backdrop. Here to help us decode the mysteries and metaphors of “Ambulance Blues” today is NYC-based singer-songwriter ⁠Zachary Cale . . .

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Pink Floyd :: Live in Saint Tropez, France 1970

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Shot for French television in Saint-Tropez during the summer of 1970, this broadcast captures Pink Floyd before the lore and iconography fully set in: no inflatable pigs, no circular screens, no stadium-scale spectacle, just four guys on a small stage dragging enormous sound through the Riviera night . . .

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Basic / Chris Forsyth’s WHAT IS NOW :: Both/And

BASIC Chris ForsythPosted on

For the past two decades, Chris Forsyth has quietly built one of the most distinctive catalogs in contemporary underground music, balancing technical precision with deep feel, repetition, and exploratory instinct. On two new releases — Basic’s self-titled LP with Douglas McCombs and Mikel Patrick Avery, and the sprawling improvisational debut from WHAT IS NOW — Forsyth stretches outward in different directions, moving from hypnotic groove and motorik interplay to thornier, open-ended collective improvisation that rewards patience, curiosity, and total immersion . . .

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Magic Tuber Stringband :: Heavy Water

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Set against the poisoned beauty of South Carolina’s Savannah River watershed, Heavy Water finds Magic Tuber Stringband threading old-time Appalachian forms through drone, field recordings, ecological ruin and Southern psychic residue. Inspired by Courtney Werner’s research into radioactive birdlife near the abandoned nuclear zone of “Atomic City,” the trio’s ninth full-length moves between haunted fiddle laments, free-form string dissonance and environmental unease . . .

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Lifetones :: For A Reason

Lifetones This HeatPosted on

Outside. South London, early 1983. On For a Reason, Charles Bullen and Julius Cornelius Samuel pull away from the tightly wound scaffolding of This Heat into something slower, heavier, and more open-ended. Basslines circulate, rhythms drift, and dub space begins to overtake the frame. Forty years later, the record still feels uncannily present after dark . . .

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Antoine Dougbé et L’Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou 1977-1982

Antoine DougbéPosted on

Benin-born songwriter Antoine Dougbé fused Cuban rumba, son, Congolese guitar music, and Vodún ceremonial rhythms into a singular strain of trance-inducing West African funk. Backed by the mighty Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, the late ’70s and early ’80s recordings collected by Analog Africa move with hypnotic force: phased guitars, rolling percussion, wiry synth lines, and call-and-response vocals locked deep inside ecstatic grooves . . .

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Juni Habel :: Evergreen In Your Mind

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Norwegian songwriter Juni Habel drifts through haunted folk terrain on Evergreen In Your Mind, her third album and perhaps her most transportive yet. Built from trembling vocals, sparse guitar, room tone, and gently destabilized atmospherics, the record moves with a hushed intensity — intimate songs suspended somewhere between pastoral melancholy and dream-state solitude. Evoking the stark emotional clarity of Sybille Baier and the fragile chamber-folk textures of Department of Eagles, Habel creates music that lingers like fog rolling in off a dark coastline . . .

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Ed Askew :: For The World

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Jerry David DeCicca looks back on the making of Ed Askew’s 2013 late-period masterpiece For the World — a record assembled through borrowed rooms, broke musicians, chance encounters, and the quiet force of Askew’s songs themselves. What began in a sweltering West Harlem warehouse with Jay Pluck, Tyler Evans, and engineer Keith Hanlon gradually expanded through contributions from Mary Lattimore, Sharon Van Etten, and Marc Ribot, all orbiting Askew’s singular presence. DeCicca’s recollection captures an artist who had moved far beyond the “psych-folk” tag attached to his ESP-Disk years . . .

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Jeff Parker ETA IVtet :: Happy Today

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If The Way Out of Easy marked the emergence of the ETA IVtet as an entity separate from the site of the band's origins, Happy Today serves as another milestone: It's the first ETA IVtet record taped somewhere other than Enfield Tennis Academy. Capturing a 2025 set at the much-larger Lodge Room, the third album from guitarist Jeff Parker, saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss and drummer Jay Bellerose shows a band with more room to move and more space to listen. Over two meditative, grooving and restless long improvisations, Parker and the ETA IVtet hone their . . .

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Stix Hooper :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Jazz Stix Hooper The AD Interview The CrusadersPosted on

As a member of The Crusaders, drummer Nesbert "Stix" Hooper's life in music is a testament to the power of the groove. With his rhythms at the foundation, the band blended R&B, jazz, rock, funk, and eventually fusion, and his playing would go onto provide crucial samples for beats utilized by artists like J Dilla, Madlib, Three Six Mafia, and many more, making him, according to his label, "arguably the most sampled drummer of all-time." He joins Aquarium Drunkard to discuss his new album and storied history—and one necessary ingredient that should be in every pot . . .

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Posted on Jazz Stix Hooper The AD Interview The Crusaders

Luiz Bonfá :: Introspection (1972)

Brazil Luiz BonfáPosted on

Long framed abroad as a translator of Brazilian music for international audiences, Luiz Bonfá reveals a far stranger and more intimate dimension on Introspection (1972), a hushed solo-acoustic meditation built from layered guitar lines, drifting counterpoint, and weightless melodic fragments. Tracing Bonfá’s unlikely path from Black Orpheus and CTI Records to hip-hop sampling and accidental pop immortality, this set repositions him not as an ambassador, but as a singular architect of suspended, dreamlike atmosphere . . .

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Beefheart & McGuinn :: Midtown Downtime

Beefheart & McGuinnPosted on

The new collaboration between UK/Melbourne musicians William Murray and Winter McGuinn, Midtown Downtime is a warmly worn folk-rock set built on intoxicating harmonies and beautifully crisp production. Bound together by a shared lineage of touchstones, the duo channel a loose, rootsy sway that occasionally recalls the unhurried ease of J.J. Cale. Arriving at the onset of summer, Midtown Downtime carries an understated breeze that feels equally suited to late afternoons, long drives, or slow evenings with the windows open . . .

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Lee Shook on the Sun Ra Day Festival :: 2026

Jazz Sun Ra Sun Ra ArkestraPosted on

Everyone knows he came from Saturn. But his earthly form, that of a young jazz prodigy Sonny Blount, was born on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama. And Birmingham is where the the Sun Ra Day Festival, a multi-day, multi-city event—with outposts in London and Nashville—is rooted. Commemorating the 112th anniversary of his earthy arrival, the festival's aim is to explore and expand the cosmic legacy of Ra with film screenings, talks, and a performance by his Arkestra, under the leadership of the 102-year-old saxophonist Marshall Allen, who studied directly with Ra for . . .

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All One Song :: Jerry David DeCicca on “From Hank To Hendrix”

All One Song Neil Young PodcastPosted on

Here to plumb the depths of “From Hank To Hendrix” today is Texas-based singer-songwriter Jerry David DeCicca. Like Neil Young, Jerry’s songs are often made out of seemingly simple materials, but the more you listen to them, the deeper they become, simplicity transforming into something wonderfully complex. For example, one of his best songs deals with the cosmic pleasure of watermelons . . .

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What’s There That Isn’t There: Avey Tare & Geologist on “Croz Boyce”

Avey Tare Geologist The AD InterviewPosted on

Dave Portner and Brian Weitz are finally getting back to basics. After nearly three decades of pushing the concept of “rock music” to its absolute limit in Animal Collective, the duo better known as Avey Tare and Geologist recently dropped their debut collaborative release, Croz Boyce. A breezy, bountiful collection of instrumental jams, the record recalls Campfire Songs-era AnCo while simultaneously striking out in playful, surprising directions that almost verge on pop.  

Recently, we sat down with Portner and Weitz to unpack where Croz Boyce came from, who Janis is, how Animal Collective was never even supposed to be . . .

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