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CAN :: Soon Over Babaluma

CANPosted on

Soon Over Babaluma is a satellite moon in CAN’s oeuvre, perpetually orbiting the seismic mass of the music they created between 1969-1973, one last psychedelic excursion before transitioning into the tighter arrangements and slicker production of the mid-late 70s. CAN was floating ever deeper into space, fresh off the gravitational break achieved on Future Days. Recorded on the heels of Damo Suzuki’s departure, Soon Over Babaluma marked both the end of era and a reinvention of everything the CAN had been working toward— the deepening of a sound that was still hurtling toward the outer reaches . . .

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Posted on CAN

SOYUZ :: Force Of The Wind

SOYUZPosted on

SOYUZ's Force of the Wind is an imitation of the Brazilian Clube da Esquina scene of the 1970s, in the sense that it adheres to certain aesthetic principles and compositional signifiers associated with that group. It even explicitly names its models: Milton Nascimento, Lô Borges, Burnier & Cartier, Arthur Verocai. Yet it's clear that any appropriation of Brazilian music is careful and loving, as Alex Chumak wants to not only pay homage to the 1970s MPB that fascinates him, but to play with its grammar, extend it, renovate it. To sound Brazilian yet not Brazilian, as he explains . . .

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Aoife Nessa Frances :: Protector

Aoife Nessa FrancesPosted on

At the start of 2020 Aoife Nessa Frances initiated the new year with her psych-folk debut, Land of No Junction. Misty vocals, expansively intricate guitar work, gauzy strings, and mellotron washing over hazy production cemented her a spot as one of the most promising artists of a new decade. On Protector that prediction holds up. Frances has created an album of down-tempo pop music that retains the psychedelic leanings of her first LP. The vocal work of the Irish songwriter remains serious and solemn, but the work put into the arrangements of the tunes seem to signify a . . .

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Posted on Aoife Nessa Frances

June McDoom :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

June McDoom The AD InterviewPosted on

"I grew up only listening to reggae music. And for a long time, I felt like that was really outside of my musical identity." June McDoom joins us to discuss her new reggae-inflected collection of psychedelic folk . . .

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Posted on June McDoom The AD Interview

Deadline Paranoia 3/3 :: Cappadocia

Deadline ParanoiaPosted on

Released by Ongehoord, Deadline Paranoia 3/3 is the last of three compilations by the 1980s Amsterdam-based outfit. Jeroen Vermandere, who runs the label, discovered these hauntingly timeless recordings while pouring over the Dutch 1980s cassette scene. I’ve been obsessed with this release since first hearing it, and I think Vermandere puts it best in his description of the newly-rediscovered group when he says the recordings embody “a sensitivity towards the spiritual placed alongside anarchic violence . . .

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Posted on Deadline Paranoia

Every Angel’s Terrifying: Explorations in German Jazz-Rock, 1970-1980

MixtapesPosted on

... reverberating flutes, amplified saxophones, liquid Fender Rhodes keyboards The guitars are jazzy and lysergic in turn, sometimes in the very same track. At times, the drums sit right in the pocket; moments later, they are thundering out for the old gods. It was not so much a fusion of jazz and rock as a continuum where these forms could mutate one into another and back again. All of this music is compelling; some of it is sublime. This darker corner of the krautrock era of the 1970s deserves a good deal more light . . .

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Posted on Mixtapes

How To Avoid An Imbroglio: A Rodney Graham Musical Primer

Rodney GrahamPosted on

Internationally renowned artist Rodney Graham (January 16, 1949 – October 22, 2022) passed away earlier this week, and while primarily known as a visual and conceptual artist of uncommon depth and clarity, his career also ran a parallel track over the last two decades as a singer/songwriter and recording artist of wryly observed and perfectly constructed pop songs that mine a half century or more’s worth of North American musical forms . . .

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Posted on Rodney Graham

The Aquarium Drunkard Show (The Halloween Edition)

Halloween SIRIUSPosted on

Broadcasting from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery … The Aquarium Drunkard Show. The Halloween edition, Wednesday night / 7pm California time. SIRIUS/XM ~ Channel 35 . . .

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Posted on Halloween SIRIUS

The Lagniappe Sessions :: Yohei 鹿野洋平

Lagniappe Sessions Yohei ShikanoPosted on

Fresh off of a long summer on the road, the multi-instrumentalist recorded his inaugural Lagniappe Session soaked in the California sun of his outdoor garden studio (background cricket ambiance and all). In addition to tackling Jonathan Richman's interpretation of fantasy exotica, the selections play tribute to his many lifelong influences dating back to childhood in Japan: deep cuts from the limitless worlds of Haruomi Hosono and Eiichi Ohtaki . . .

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Posted on Lagniappe Sessions Yohei Shikano

Twain :: Noon

TwainPosted on

Noon is a time defined as much by what it isn’t as what it is, a place where morning has ended but afternoon has yet to crest. For songwriter Mat Davidson, the voice and mind behind Twain, Noon is an attempt to exist in this middle ground. But the album resists its existence as a fleeting thing, smearing itself across the album’s 13 tracks to mesmerizing effect, becoming a moment you might believe you’ll be able to live in forever, even if you can’t . . .

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Posted on Twain

Joe Rainey :: Transmissions

Joe Rainey PodcastPosted on

This week on Transmissions: Joe Rainey. Rainey is a powwow singer of the Red Lake Ojibwe tribe. He’s known for collaborations with Bon Iver, Chance the Rapper and Alan Sparhawk of Low, and in May he released his debut solo album, Niineta on Justin Vernon’s 37d03d label. Created in conjunction with producer Andrew Broder, it pairs his vocals with samples culled from his vast collection of powwow tapes, thundering percussion, and dense, thickly layered soundscapes that evoke the overwhelming haze of modern electronic music . . .

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Posted on Joe Rainey Podcast

Videodrome :: Wisconsin Death Trip

VideodromePosted on

The documentary shows news reports and photographs from a town decaying into chaos throughout the 1890s: murder, suicide, mental insanity, epidemics, arson, and economic collapse. Whether following one of the many Black River Falls residents taken to Mendota Asylum for insanity or tracing ghost sightings in the area, Wisconsin Death Trip displays a community in complete decline, stripping away the romanticization of the American frontier to reveal its true agony and despair . . .

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Posted on Videodrome

Amon Düül: A Young Person’s Guide 002

Amon DüülPosted on

The break up was cemented. The live reputation established. Amon Düül’s more musical half – adopting the suffix ‘II’ – entered the studio and laid down the first identifiable Kosmische slab. In name alone, Amon Düül II’s debut demanded attention. “The God Cock” would formally signify Germany’s emergence as a world power once more—though this time on the countercultural stage. Preceding Can’s Monster Movie by two months, Phallus Dei would be the introductory major-label document of a burgeoning Gegenkultur coming out of West Germany at the end of the 1960s . . .

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Posted on Amon Düül

Ghost Riders :: A Compilation

CompilationPosted on

In 2016, Australian label Efficient Space released Sky Girl, a near immaculate collection of gems lifted from small pressings dating from the sixties to the nineties compiled by Julien Dechery and DJ Sundae. Although highly varied, pasting together new wave tones, borderline outsider rock, and haunting folk, Sky Girl is a seamless listen. Six years on, Efficient Space offer their second compilation, Ghost Riders, put together by record collector Ivan Liechti, culled between 1965-1974 . . .

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Posted on Compilation

Aquarium Drunkard Book Club :: Chapter 19

Book ClubPosted on

Welcome back to the stacks. It’s Aquarium Drunkard’s Book Club, our monthly gathering of recent (or not so recent) recommended reading. This month: Galaxie 500, the punk dramas of Kid Congo Powers, Cosey Fanni Tutti's cross generational epic Re-Sisters, the Zen poetics of Philip Whalen, and horror comics from Jack "The King" Kirby . . .

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Posted on Book Club