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You Should Pay Rent In My Mind: Guy Picciotto | The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

In 1995 Fugazi released Red Medicine which to us here at AD was a radical shift in the band’s recorded trajectory. The arrangements grew more complex, the studio-as-instrument ethos becoming fully realized with more extreme textures. From lo-fi abstractions to widescreen feedback, to moments of tender beauty, the overall feel of the album felt more personal, even down to the packaging itself. To these ears it stands as a fulcrum which opened vistas in which the next records would further expand upon. Digging in, llyas Ahmed recently sat down with band member Guy Picciotto for a . . .

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The Weather Station :: Neon Signs

Call it "brain fog," call it "attention economy burnout," call it the dregs of late capitalism: however you label it, Tamara Lindeman has been feeling it. With "Neon Signs," the sleek and driving new first single from her forthcoming album 2025 album Humanhood, she gives names and shapes to the sense of dread so many of us feel permeating our daily existence: "I’ve gotten used to feeling like I’m crazy—or just lazy . . .

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Transmissions :: Matt Sweeney

Is Matt Sweeney the only guy to play on both a Current 93 and Dixie Chicks record? We suspect so. This week on Transmissions, he joins us to discuss the Monkees-like nature of his band, The Hard Quartet, with Stephen Malkmus of Pavement, Jim White of The Dirty Three, and Emmett Kelly of The Cairo Gang. He joins host Jason P. Woodbury to discuss . . .

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The Hard Quartet :: S/T

The playing is great. The lyrics are knotty and evocative. The songs are distinct and individuated. But more than all that, what makes this self-titled effort so stirring is the joy that these four guys take in being and playing together. In short, this is no haphazard conjunction of people you’ve vaguely heard of. It is a meeting of giants who know and like and understand each other . . .

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Alan Sparhawk :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Speaking from his dining room table in Duluth, Alan Sparhawk graciously explores the various paths that steered his first ever solo album under his own name, White Roses, My God. From the liberatory power of vocal processing to what he's been listening to lately, the talk is a revelation . . .

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Les Rallizes Dénudés :: 屋根裏 YaneUra Oct. ’80

In the two years since Les Rallizes Dénudés began their campaign to officially release the recordings that have been stashed away in their sizeable archives, Takashi Mizutani’s famously enigmatic underground band has seen its stature rise slightly above ground, with write-ups in major outlets like The New York Times, NPR, Pitchfork, The Wire, and The Quietus. For a group that remained unsigned to any label and released very little material over the course of their three-decade existence, the Rallizes are remarkably well-documented: photos and recordings exist from their earliest days as student activist . . .

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Friends of Dean Martinez :: A Listener’s Guide

Spaghetti western tributes, desert noir soundscapes, doomy post-rock, '70s rock grandeur. A guide to the music of Friends of Dean Martinez with pedal steel player Bill Elm . . .

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Broadcast :: Distant Call – Collected Demos 2000-2006

Even funneled through the warbly quality of these 4-track relics, it begs the question: could the band have released a stripped down, psych-folk affair that worked as majestically as their spacey, electronic flourishes? These cuts envision that hypothetical quite clearly . . .

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Videodrome :: The Reflecting Skin (1990)

The Reflecting Skin looks at explosions of both the emotional and nuclear kind and the ghastly fallout they leave behind. As the film navigates the battlefield of youth and innocence—of false narratives confused for honest declarations, of skeleton-filled closets that no one wants to open—it poetically reminds audiences that the worst nightmares occur during waking hours, committed by flesh-and-blood beings in the glow of golden sunlight . . .

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Bandcamping :: Autumn 2024

An autumnal soundtrack, filled with ambient jazz, cosmic drifts, adventurous improvisatory situations and one hell of a Sonic Youth cover. Fill up your Bandcamp (or other digital service) cart and watch the leaves start to fall . . .

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Yoshiko Sai :: Mangekyou

Before the explosion of city pop, before shibuya-key and Tokyo’s collectors mania, there was already Mangekyou itself, the 1975 debut record from Yoshiko Sai, then just a 22 year old dropout from the art school of Kyoto. Approaching the 50 year anniversary of Sai’s legendary debut, WEWANTSOUNDS has announced a reissue that will see the album available outside of Japan for the first time ever . . .

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The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PDT, Channel 35)

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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Adeline Hotel :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Proving to be a restless sonic chameleon, Adeline Hotel (the moniker of multi-instrumentalist Dan Knishkowy) never makes the same record twice. Inspired by the likes of Jim O'Rourke's transmuting discography, Adeline Hotel's recent records range from fingerpicking guitar, jazz-tinged atmospheric compositions, and orchestral art pop. With nods to the likes of Gillian Welch and John Martyn, his latest, Whodunnit, is a kaleidoscopic autumnal tapestry that brings Knishkowy's precise lyrical talents to the forefront . . .

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Catching Up With Sarah Davachi :: 10 Years of Drone

Sarah Davachi builds on the past. Renaissance harmonies, the ghosts of Bach, and The Head As Form'd In The Crier's Choir, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. To mark the occasion, she guides us through her back catalog, detailing 10 years of drone . . .

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Transmissions :: Jake Xerxes Fussell

As the son of folklorist, photographer, and artist Fred C. Fussell, Jake Xerxes Fussell spent time on the road with his father, documenting the sound and feel of blues singers, indigenous fiddlers, and performers whose songbooks reached back generations. He joins us to discuss musical deep time and his latest When I'm Called . . .

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