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Guinga :: Delírio Carioca

Brazil GuingaPosted on

Guinga's Delírio Carioca offers an alternative history of MPB, like an anti-bossa nova: what if samba had not dissolved into cool jazz but rather formed a deep new assemblage with the orchestral soundtracks of Mancini and Morricone. What if instead of having slowed and reduced the drum ensembles of samba and translated them into a particular style of plucking and intonation, MPB had retained much of the quality of samba's parent-genre, choro—the frenetic percussive fills, the elaborate counterpoint, the counterintuitive progressions . . .

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WITCH :: Sogolo

WitchPosted on

Where 2023's Zango emphasized the Zamrock band WITCH's fuzzy, blues-based roots, the reunited group's newest record takes a more experimental turn. The jittery, psychedelic sound of Sogolo defies the expectations of those who might have hoped for a more faithful reconstruction of the band's early days, opting instead to traverse the realms of reggae, freak-folk, desert blues and more. Frenzied percussion flourishes accentuate the unhinged guitar riffs of “Kamusale” and “Nadi,” while African folk rhythms guide later tunes like “Set Free” and “Nibani . . .

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Ratboys :: Light Night Mountains All That

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By now, Ratboys is as reliable an institution in indie rock as Culver’s is for hamburgers, or as humid days at the lake are for bug bites. “Light Night Mountains All That,” the new single from the Chicago-based band, is the first music released since 2023’s phenomenal LP The Window, and represents a decade of creative duo Julia Steiner and Dave Sagan releasing music under the moniker . . .

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1981 :: A Post-Punk Compilation

Compilation Mixtapes Post-PunkPosted on

Long live the old, weird internet. Out of all the genres, post-punk has always felt like the hardest to pin down. What the hell was / is it? I’m not sure I could tell you. But I can tell you that the Musicophilia blog’s massive 1981 box set of mixes is perhaps the best representation of the wild burst of creativity that was happening in the underground at the time. While the original mp3 downloads of the box set have since been replaced at Musicophilia with streaming options, we have uploaded the original files for posterity . . .

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Denis O’Donnell :: The Snow in Brooklyn

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Denis O’Donnell has been at the forefront of the Austin, Texas country movement since 2006. On his latest release, The Snow in Brooklyn, O’Donnell has recruited top notch jazz players and taken his songs to Bob Hoffnar and Andy Taub in NYC. Having roots in both Queens (O’Donnell’s grandfather owned an Irish pub under the elevated train) and Texas, O’Donnell is throwing his hat in the ring for both Austin and New York legend . . .

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Sir Richard Bishop :: Hillbilly Ragas

Sir Richard BishopPosted on

From the first shimmering sallies of “They Shall Take Up Serpents,” it’s clear that Sir Richard Bishop has returned from the locales of North Africa and the Middle East to once again explore the shadowy, verdant valleys of blues-folk Americana, the intricate, scale-slanted reveries of India. In abrupt, percussive volleys of strumming and picking, Bishop stakes out a claim on the mystic yearnings of Takoma-style picking, inspired, as the title implies, equally by Appalachia and the sub-continent . . .

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Cochemea :: Vol. 3: Ancestros Futuros

CochemeaPosted on

Multi-instrumentalist Cochemea Gastelum wraps up his trilogy of albums exploring his tribal roots by looking ahead. Though he doesn’t jettison the non-Western traditions that informed his earlier two records entirely, his relies more on the present as a way to see into the realm of future days. Full of tribal rhythms pulled from pre-Colonial North and South American civilizations as well as urbane midcentury jazz and ‘70s soul, Ancestros Futuros creates a bold new world in which some things never change . . .

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Primal Scream :: Echo Dek (Adrian Sherwood)

Adrian Sherwood Primal ScreamPosted on

In the fall of 1997 Primal Scream dropped the Adrian Sherwood produced dub companion disc, Echo Dek. Far from the superfluous cash grabs that comprised the majority of ‘remix’ collections of the era, Sherwood’s take feels both essential and independent of the source material. Inky and subterranean, the nine track set doubles down on Vanishing Point’s idée fixe stretching out deep into the void as Sherwood explores the hinterlands, adding and subtracting, while occasionally dubbing in disembodied vox from Gillespie and the voice of thunder, Prince Far I . . .

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Bandcamping :: Autumn 2025

BandcampingPosted on

Here we go again, spiraling into another autumn. The best season? Yeah, maybe. The original Goth Queen Emily Brontë knew: “Every leaf speaks bliss to me / Fluttering from the autumn tree.” So as the days shorten and shadows lengthen, take some time to check out some recent/recommended tunes . . .

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Transmissions :: Joan Shelley (2025)

Joan Shelley PodcastPosted on

Welcome to Transmissions. This week, singer/songwriter Joan Shelley. Her haunted folk songs and crystal clear voice have long made her a favorite of the Aquarium Drunkard crew. Writing about her last one, 2022’s The Spur, Tyler Wilcox wrote: "At this point in her career, we would probably settle for a ‘pretty good’ album from Joan Shelley…But no, [she] continues an unbroken streak of masterpieces." Her latest is called Real Warmth, and it offers precisely what the title states. She joins us to discuss . . .

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: Phi-Psonics

Lagniappe Sessions Phi-PsonicsPosted on

Earlier this spring, spiritual jazz collective Phi-Psonics released their sprawling, fantastic third album Expanding to One. Led by upright bassist bassist Seth Ford-Young, for their inaugural Lagniappe Session, the collective delivers a pair of Duke Ellington compositions (including "Fleurette Africaine" from the seminal Ellington/Mingus/Roach triumph Money Jungle), early sixties Sun Ra, and "River Man" from Nick Drake's debut album . . .

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Cate Le Bon :: When You Make Things, You Let Go

Cate Le Bon The AD InterviewPosted on

Cate Le Bon is an elusive talent, adept at evoking emotional states without fully explicating them, suggesting resonances with other times and places without ever unpacking them. Her latest album, Michelangelo Dying, for instance, has very little to do with the renaissance artist, mentioned in a fragment of “Love Unrehearsed,” and whatever that connection is, Le Bon is uninterested in revealing it. But even so, the piece conveys a fluid, complicated relationship with love and art and longing, one revealed in bits of startling sonic clarity, but also hidden in suggestion, implication and mood . . .

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Greg Freeman :: Burnover

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This second album from Greg Freeman finds northern New England’s hard, un-Instagram-able side, the parking lots of dollar stores, the sooty remnants of burnt-out forests, the single gnarly trees left by farmers for shade as they clear cut the land. Burnover's songs follow knotty, Americana rhythms spiked with drumbeats, stabbed through with sharp-edged guitars. They’re banged up but defiant about it, blistered with feedback and vibrating with reedy, pleading choruses . . .

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Mal Waldron :: Candy Girl

Jazz Mal WaldronPosted on

A rare 1975 Mal Waldron session with the Lafayette Afro Rock Band finally gets a proper reissue, clarifying some of the album’s many mysteries and deepening its still-ambiguous message. Playing electric piano, the always laconic Waldron gives lots of space to the funk band, space that’s not taken up in the traditional sense. Instead, the songs explore relentless repetition and intense stasis, forming ruts so deep they become portals to different worlds, or at least altered frames of reference . . .

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Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard :: September 2025

Radio Free Aquarium DrunkardPosted on

Freeform transmissions from Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard on dublab. Airing every third Sunday of the month, RFAD on dublab features the pairing of Tyler Wilcox’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb and Chad DePasquale’s New Happy Gathering. This month, Tyler gets things going with an hour’s worth of recent/recommended pastoral ambient sounds, and Chad follows it up with his quarterly survey of recent 2025 digs, both new + archival. Sunday, 4-6pm PT . . .

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