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Gil Scott-Heron and His Midnight Band :: Live, January 16, 1978 KALX‑FM

Gil Scott-HeronPosted on

Laid down live at KALX‑FM radio at the University of California, Berkeley, Gil Scott-Heron’s January 1978 engagement with his Midnight Band has long circulated as a well-worn bootleg among enthusiasts. Clocking in at around seventy minutes, the recording captures Heron at his artistic zenith in the ’70s, working in vital tandem with Brian Jackson. As broadcasts go, it remains a vivid testament to his singular command of stage, band, and political pulse . . .

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Bill Frisell :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Bill Frisell Jazz The AD InterviewPosted on

For Bill Frisell, music at its best feels dreamlike. It bends and manipulates time, contracting and expanding. On his latest, In My Dreams the guitarist is joined by longtime collaborators for a spectral set of tunes, including a sterling cover of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's "Isfahan." He joins us to discuss the record, dreams, and Gary Larson's The Far Side . . .

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Ron Carter :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Jazz Ron Carter The AD InterviewPosted on

In more than a half-century of activity, the legendary bassist has played with nearly everyone in jazz, from cult heroes to celebrated titans to forgotten mavericks. but longevity and dedication as a sideman, along with his stint in Miles Davis' fabled Second Great Quintet, tend to obscure his many other major accomplishments. For his Aquarium Drunkard Interview, Carter talked about the inspiration behind his latest project and his hardscrabble and illustrious past, and went into his philosophical outlook and practical methods. Breaking down music as an art, a profession and a discipline, Carter shows that a life spent keeping . . .

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Posted on Jazz Ron Carter The AD Interview

Jean-Claude Vannier :: L’enfant Assassin des Mouches

Jean-Claude VannierPosted on

Jean-Claude Vannier’s 1972 magnum opus endures. Arriving a year after his iconic collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg on Histoire de Melody Nelson, L’enfant Assassin des Mouches represents the full flowering of his idiosyncratic vision, expanding the possibilities of contemporary orchestral pop as the rulebook of conventional composition dissolves in its wake . . .

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Aquarium Drunkard Book Club :: Chapter 37

Book ClubPosted on

Welcome back to the stacks. It’s Aquarium Drunkard’s Book Club, our irregular gathering of recent (or not so recent) recommended reading. In this month’s stack: melting some winter ice with Beth Lesser's definitive '80s Jamaican Dancehall coffee table tome, Larry Charles' dangerous comedy memoir, the undersung dean of American pulp and grit-lit, Charles Willieford, Haruki Murakami's anecdote-infused biographies of over fifty jazz musicians, and an uncategorizable work that Thurston Moore describes as “akin to a ‘lost’ recording by the Velvet Underground . . .

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The Reverbs :: The Happy Forest

The ReverbsPosted on

Influenced by the sweet jangly spell of early R.E.M., 1984's The Happy Forest is the lone 12" mini-album from Chicago-based outfit The Reverbs. A duo featuring underground pop stalwart Ric Menck (Velvet Crush, The Springfields), the spirited track "Trusted Woods" was previously the launching off point of the archival Captured Tracks compilation Strum & Thrum, surveying the era's understated guitar-pop landscape. With chiming guitars, sparse production and reverb-drenched vocals, the record simultaneously recalls the essential Byrds jangle and then contemporaries from both coasts, such as neo-psychedelia of the Paisley Underground's Rain . . .

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Bill Callahan :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Bill Callahan The AD InterviewPosted on

My Days of 58 is the latest record from singer-songwriter Bill Callahan. What does this record show? It is not only a document, but, as the title states, also an accounting of Callahan at a certain age, portraying who he is as a writer, a musician, a father, a partner, and a human being at a specific moment in time.  He joins us to discuss a recent cancer scare, repetition, and visiting his musical heroes in his dreams . . .

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Elkotsh :: rhlt jdi

ElkotshPosted on

Let it bleed. Egyptian producer Elkotsh's feral debut album, rhlt jdi, embodies a simmering punk-as-fuck ethos. All sweat, the Cairo-based artist plies his polyrhythmic, claustrophobic electro-shaabi across nine relentless tracks, forging a tension that transcends vocabulary, culture, and borders. Under the Cairene sun, Egyptian electronic music mutates in Elkotsh’s grip, tapping into a universal urban freneticism that feels at once visceral and off-world . . .

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Peter Stampfel :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Peter Stampfel The AD InterviewPosted on

Peter Stampfel's Song Shards features a whopping 46 songs. Despite struggles with dysphonia, it's clear the 87-year-old artist, Holy Modal Rounders founder, one-time Fugs member, and solo artist has no trouble gathering up material. He joined us to discuss the record, his spiritual practice, and reflect on artists like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Smith, and Irving Berlin . . .

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Joe Zawinul :: Zawinul

Jazz Joe ZawinulPosted on

Recorded between his brief tenure as Miles’ early electric co-conspirator and the formation of Weather Report, Joe Zawinul’s 1971 self-titled LP arrived as a quiet statement in the first wave of fusion excess. If Weather Report would later showcase Zawinul as a dominant bandleader and sonic architect, Zawinul offers something more revealing: quiet evidence of a singular vision reaching full bloom. A document of what might have been had the electric revolution taken a more measured, orchestrated path, and a testament to the composer who, even in the shadows, was already shaping its future . . .

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Clifton Chenier :: Keep on Scratching

Clifton ChenierPosted on

Writing about Clifton Chenier in Smithsonian Folkways' Clifton Chenier: King of Louisiana Blues and Zydeco, American Routes host Nick Spitzer describes Chenier's road to fame on the '70s concert circuit, as his "funky hand-painted van" loaded up with gear and musicians gave way to the King riding solo in a vehicle fit for royalty, "a sparkling 1974 Cadillac de Ville in Persian lime fire-mist...his shining gold teeth and lavender suit accenting the ride as he grew evermore into a regal Creole style . . .

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Music from Saharan WhatsApp

Compilation Sahel SoundsPosted on

A spiritual successor to 2011’s Music from Saharan Cellphones, 2022’s Music from Saharan WhatsApp feels less like a sequel than a signal flare from the dunes. Where the first compilation culled music from the memory cards of thumb-worn Nokias, this latest dispatch taps the communication du jour, gathering eleven obscurities as they flicker and forward across the digital ether . . .

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Roots Radics Meet Mighty Revolutionaires :: Outernational Riddim

Reggae/Dub Roots RadicsPosted on

All mouths will be fed. Refracted through the looking glass of Scientist and Crucial Bunny, Outernational Riddim is a classic 1980 Channel One–era meeting of the minds: Roots Radics and Sly & Robbie. Alchemical reverb, space, and low-end manipulation transform monolithic rhythms into outré, immersive soundscapes, capturing the tension between the Revolutionaries’ foundational grooves and the Radics’ stripped-down pulse . . .

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Posted on Reggae/Dub Roots Radics

Lou Reed :: Imperial College, London, England, October 21, 1972

Live Upload Series Lou ReedPosted on

Cause for celebration — another terrific Lou Reed & the Tots recording has been freshly unearthed from the collection of Bill Allerton, who attended multiple Lou gigs in the UK throughout 1972. This previously uncirculated gem is not only one of the best-sounding Tots tapes — startlingly crisp and clear compared to others from around the same time — it’s also a downright wonderful performance that spotlights the substantial chemistry between Lou, Vinnie Laporta (guitar), Eddie Reynolds (guitar), Bobby Resigno (bass), Scottie Clark (drums . . .

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Naujawanan Baidar :: Volume 1

Naujawanan BaidarPosted on

Like a ’67 Velvets drone crackling from a battery-powered transistor radio beneath the Afghan sky, Naujawanan Baidar’s debut cassette evokes a world unto itself. Isolated, resonant, and strangely infinite. Recorded straight to 4-track and released in 2018 via the Netherlands-based label Radio Khiyaban, the 40-minute transmission unfolds like a sub rosa broadcast from another time, as its lo-fi textures and meditative pacing draw the listener into a furtive, half-remembered landscape where the past and present blur into one . . .

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