Welcome to the eighth installment of First & Last, a series of mixes providing a glimpse into the world of Japanese private press, or 自主盤, pronounced “jishuban”, which loosely translates to “independent board . . .
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Stay Awhile Sunshine is the final album by Midwest Farm Disaster troubadour Bob Martin. Produced by Jerry David DeCicca, it presents Martin's uncanny voice at its vivid center. Presented here: the album's title recording and a new short documentary about Martin . . .
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Over forty years have passed since the debut single from guitar pop legends the Pastels. The epitome of underground cult status, counterculture archivist Sam Knee summarized the band as "bridging the gap from post-punk into the new '80s indie era" in his book A Scene In Between, a visual encyclopedia of the era. Emerging from the era of the C86 cassette and hometown Orange Juice, the group is equally synonymous with the Glasgow-based music institutions they helped foster . . .
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Is True Stories a musical, a comedy, a documentary, or another Talking Heads film? In retrospect, it's all of these things and more. True Stories is an oracular film, predicting the changing landscape of Texas while simultaneously capturing America in all its peculiarities circa the mid-eighties . . .
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Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.
34.1090° N, 118.2334° W . . .
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Psych pioneer Dorothy Moskowitz of The United States of America joins us on the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions podcast to discuss her new collaboration The United States of Alchemy and new album Under An Endless Sky . . .
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In her essential new book Hit Girls: Women of Punk in the USA, 1975-1983, author Jen B. Larson writes that new wave singer Kate Fagan "never wanted to fit in, but to find herself." That much is clear listening to Captured Track's new compilation I Don't Want To Be Too Cool, which collects Fagan's early '80s singles and outtakes. She joins us from New Orleans to discuss the comp, her roots, working with reggae legend Peter Tosh, and share a series of photos from her archives . . .
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Spiritmuse Records is one of several modern record labels dedicated to reissuing jazz and jazz-inspired music from around the globe. The London-based label’s recent Spirit of France compilation showcases “obscure, rare spiritual jazz, deep folk and psychedelia sounds from the French ‘70s-‘80s underground” and is everything that tantalizing description promises . . .
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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: author Ben Wardle's biography of Talk Talk's Mark Hollis, a look at why Sinéad O’Connor matters, future music from Germany, and critic, musician and media theorist DeForrest Brown Jr’s Assembling A Black Counter Culture . . .
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Brothers Estevan and Alejandro Gutiérrez grew up in two words, splitting time between their father's native Switzerland and Ecuador, where their mother's family hailed from. But on El Bueno Y El Malo, the siblings evoke the sound of some sparse and sun-bleached desert. Hermanos Gutiérrez joined us to discuss their origins, filmic inspirations, how the desert influences their recordings, and share a new video for "Hermosa Drive . . .
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There’s a certain pulse in São Paulo, unlike any city I’ve visited. The noise from traffic, helicopters, work crews, and vendors is constant and polyrhythmic. São Paulo often sounds and feels like it’s bursting at the seams. With roughly 12 million people in the city proper and 22 million in the metropolitan region, the megalopolis is loud - one of the loudest places I’ve visited - and this from someone who lived in lower Manhattan for over a dozen years . . .
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Wayne Shorter died in Los Angeles on March 2, 2023 at the age of 89, a titan of modern music. People, in mourning and celebration, are returning to an enormous body of recorded music that was astonishingly great from start to finish. Dust off the mid-60s Blue Note classics like Juju and Speak No Evil. Marvel with dropped jaw at what the Second Quintet was doing in December 1965 at the Plugged Nickel. Listen to Wayne’s pop cameos on Aja or Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. Funk out to the non-stop groove machine of Sweetnighter. But spare . . .
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If October’s Perfect Middle Hall was a surprising left turn away from Cactus Lee’s string of decidedly country LPs, new standalone single “Alpine Skier,” out March 3rd on Hippie Scum, is something else altogether. Call it a swerve off the blacktop . . .
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Sparked by a recent re-obsession with Miles Davis' On The Corner sessions, Abstract Truths returns with a grip of records that have been hovering around the LA hq these past few months. Electric fusion, Turiyasangitananda jams, hard bop, jazz funk, spiritual. Myriad modalities abound…all rooted by an earthy funkiness. File under: soul music . . .
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Two new documentary films, The Elephant 6 Recording Co. and This Is Sparklehorse, cover two very different Southern artistic expressions in the ‘90s, subtly pushing against the idea that Southern music is exclusively traditional or conservative, remapping the sound of a new South for a new generation . . .
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