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Ork Records :: Complete Singles

If there's a thick wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket come National Record Store Day this year, you could certainly do a lot worse than scooping up this collection of lovingly reproduced 7-inches via the always reliable Numero Group. Ork Records, briefly, was one of the original indie labels, curated by NYC tastemaker Terry Ork. Leading off with epochal debuts from Television and Richard Hell & The Voidoids, the label was on the front lines of the mid-70s CBGB scene . . .

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Mel Brown :: Eighteen Pounds of Unclean Chitlins

Saturday. Thick smoke billowing from the pig cooker 'cause Mel Brown's got a free form groove on low and slow. Cold drinks in the ice chest. More folks coming over soon. John Lee Hooker's  Endless Boogie up next. Alright. words / j steele

Mel Brown :: Eighteen Pounds of Unclean Chitlins

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A.M. Deballot :: A Wudu / Bella

Here is a comprehensive list of everything that is known about these two songs: They were recorded by A.M. Deballot in Benin. That’s it. Googling his name produces seven results. Doesn’t matter. The offset, shuffling rhythms are perfectly embellished by an organ that could’ve been lifted from This Year’s Model. The sun is shining, it’s a Friday, and this music exists. words / m garner

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SIRIUS/XMU :: Aquarium Drunkard Show (Noon EST, Channel 35)

Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can be heard twice every Friday — Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.

SIRIUS 383: Jean Michel Bernard — Generique Stephane ++ Alain Goraguer - La Femme ++ Carsten Meinert Kvartet - One For Alice ++ Mad A - Aouh Aouh ++ Dr. John - I Walk On Guilded Splinters ++ Sweet Breeze - Good Thing ++ Los Holy’s - Psicodelico Desconocido (Cissy Strut) ++ Bo Diddley - Another Sugar Daddy ++ Al Green - All Because ++ Thee Image - Outasite ++ Adanowsky - Me . . .

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The Soundtracks Of Jenny Agutter / 1970-81

To hold a Jenny Agutter film festival would be an inspired idea. In the late-’60s, throughout the ’70s and early ’80s, the UK actress had a golden run featuring in some of the era’s most intriguing films. From the early, quintessentially British ones like 1969’s I Start Counting and The Railway Children through Nic Roeg’s 1971 existential outback adventure Walkabout, the sci-fi cult hit Logan’s Run, Monte Hellman’s underestimated western

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Ben Carruthers & The Deep :: Jack O’ Diamonds

As a kid I had a postcard of a saxophone player standing outside New York’s Birdland. It was taken by William Claxton and I found out recently that it’s a still from the John Cassavetes 1959 film, Shadows. The subject is the raccoon-eyed actor Ben Carruthers (who later played screen-busting character parts in The Dirty Dozen and Riot with Gene Hackman). It’s the same Ben Carruthers who was friends with Bob Dylan, introduced Bob to Nico in Paris, which in . . .

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Moon Duo :: Winter (Rolling Stones)

Moon Duo are something of a 21st century Suicide — a synth swelled duo occupying a dreamscape drive down a dark highway. It’s a very specific kind of atmosphere and mood and on Shadow of the Sun, their third long player for the Sacred Bones label, it is perhaps best encapsulated by the slow and spacey “In a Cloud.” Synth washes over the tape in undulating waves as members Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada chant in floating, hazy harmony. Flowing ragged guitar gleams . . .

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Soft Cat :: All Energy Will Rise

After a spell of uncertainty following the release of Soft Cat's promising debut LP in 2010, it was unclear whether principle songwriter Neil Sanzgiri would continue the project at all. Slowly returning to his craft while immersing himself in the Baltimore music community, he began to compile the material and players for it's follow-up, Lost No Labor, a captivating collection of baroque-pop serving as a glowing introduction to Sanzgiri's knack for building patient, pastoral orchestrations rich with hope. Despite managing a constant rotation of collaborators, each Soft Cat release and performance saw Sanzgiri shedding nervous . . .

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Carsten Meinert Kvartet :: To You

Restored from the original mastertapes, Frederiksberg Records 2015 reissue of To You -- the 1968 Danish jazz LP by Carsten Meinert Kvartet. In addition to the vinyl release, the cd version (marking the albums first time on compact disc) includes a 24-page booklet with fresh liner notes, unpublished photos and four bonus tracks.

Check out a taste below -- track one off the lp; Kvartet's take on Coltrane's "become a member or log in.

Blossom Dearie :: That’s Just The Way I Want To Be

Ethereal, haunting, magic. Another side of Blossom Dearie.

Blossom Dearie :: That's Just The Way I Want To Be

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SIRIUS/XMU :: Aquarium Drunkard Show (Noon EST, Channel 35)

Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can be heard twice every Friday — Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.

SIRIUS 382: Jean Michel Bernard — Generique Stephane ++ Whitefield Brothers - Rampage ++ JD & The Evil's Dynamite - Beer (So Nice, Right On) ++ Ebo Taylor & Uhuru-Yenza - Love And Death ++ Mor Thiam - Ayo Ayo Nene ++ Nora Dean - Angie La La (Ay Ay Ay) ++ Alex Chilton - Jumpin' Jack Flash ++ Rob Jo Star Band — I Call . . .

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Ariel Kalma / Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe :: The AD Interview

Some creative unions take time and labor to coalesce. For Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe and Ariel Kalma, an artistic connection was established at lightning speed. A few conversations, a meet up in San Francisco, and then to Byron Bay, Australia, where the two took a few walks, got some coffee, and created We Know Each Other Somehow, the twelfth volume in RVNG Intl.’s FRKWYS series of collaborative albums. It’s a gorgeous LP, a gentle unfolding of astral jazz and cosmic drones.

As electronic composers, the two are accomplished individually: Lowe is known for his Lichens project and work with bands like 90 Day Men and Om; The French-born Kalma began making music in the late ‘60s and has continued since, exploring Eastern modalities, ecstatic melodies, synth soundscapes, and jazz-inflected free sounds. Coming together, the elder Kalma immediately recognized a shared spirit in Lowe.

“The interesting part was I felt this familiarity with Robert through conversations we had, from the first moment,” Kalma says.

Following the release of RVNG Intl.’s archival collection of Kalma’s work, An Evolutionary Music: Original Recordings: 1972 — 1979, label founder Matt Werth expressed interest in releasing new music by Kalma. Werth suggested a collaborative effort with Lowe, whose admiration of Kalma’s 1978 album Osmose served as reference point for the project.
Osmose was “a record I had cherished for quite a while,” Lowe says. “When I first heard that record it really resonated with me, I think because of my particular aesthetic and how I listen to things and sort of take them in…it was something that resonated very strongly with me.”
Osmose featured Kalma’s ambient musical textures blended with Borneo rainforest field recordings by Richard Tinti, and the incorporation of natural sounds gives We Know Each Other Somehow a hypnotic quality, featuring bird calls on “Miracle Mile” and the gurgling sounds of moving water on “Magick Creek.” The process of “tuning” synthesizers and reeds to the sounds of nature is one Kalma has long employed.

“That’s what I’ve learned to do with Osmose,” Kalma says. “That’s why we call it ‘osmosis,’ because it’s really the intimate connection between nature and instruments.” The approach has roots in Kalma’s first visit to India, and his impression of the natural harmony he observed there. “You know, they have the sacred cows in the streets -- but they are silent -- but the halls, the bicycle rings, the trains, the hoots; everything is relatively tuned,” Kalma says. The same can be said of the album. Occasionally it drifts from meditative drones toward a kind of cosmic dance music, but there’s an internal logic that shapes and unites each sound.

A film, Sunshine Soup, by directors Misha Hollenbach and Johann Rashid, serves as a companion piece to the album. Capturing serene scenes from Byron Bay and moments between Kalma and Lowe on handheld HD and 8 mm cameras, the film offers a visual display of the spiritual intimacy Kalma and Lowe share. It’s this connection which inspires the title, We Know Each Other Somehow, a phrase Lowe came across in a science fiction novel.

“For this particular instance, coming together in this way,” Lowe says, “those words together made a lot of sense.” words / j woodbury

Ariel Kalma / Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe :: Mille Voix

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Aquarium Drunkard Presents: American Dreamer – A Medley

Native American tones and folk meditations. A thirty seven minute guiding light through April.

American Dreamer - A Medley

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De Frank & His Professionals :: Waiting For My Baby

"Waiting For My Baby", via Psychedelic Man -- Ghanaian drummer and percussionist De Frank Kakrah's 1976 lp with the Professionals.

De Frank & His Professionals :: Waiting For My Baby

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Matthew E. White :: Tranquility

Matthew E. White’s “Tranquility” is lovely. It’s about a fatal heroin overdose. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s overdose, to be precise. And it’s lovely.

I’ve spent three months listening to Fresh Blood, White’s latest record, as often as I can take it. In nearly every pre-release interview I’ve read, he mentions that spending two years playing 2012’s Big Inner on the road made him want to be a better songwriter, and while Fresh Blood doesn’t . . .

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