Posts

Virtual Dreams II :: Ambient Explorations In The House & Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999

Circumventing the music collector mania of Japan at the height of the acid house fever of the 1990s, these minimal tracks, based on sharp silken hi-hats and psychedelic space-age phasers, add a new twist to the history of the Detroit genre at the same time that they sound as contemporary as any new work by Actress, Jon Hopkins, or Pantha du Prince . . .

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YAI :: Sky Time

The duo of multi-instrumentalist David Lackner and percussionist and engineer John Thayer met while working on Arp's fourth world revivalist masterpiece Zebra. Their group YAI takes that album's treated jazz instrumentation and squirming electronics and reinforces them with throbbing beats and deep dub bass tones. The result, Sky Time, lands somewhere between ambient jazz and the chillout room . . .

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Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard :: September 2024

Freeform transmissions from Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard on dublab. Airing every third Sunday of the month, RFAD on dublab features the pairing of Tyler Wilcox’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb and Chad DePasquale’s New Happy Gathering. This month, Wilcox kicks things off with an exploration of the Setting sound, drawing from the improv-based North Carolina group's recent releases, plus some side-trips into the trio's various other projects. Then, DePasquale shares a sweet mix of recent 2024 digs, both new + archival. Sunday, 4-6pm PT . . .

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Fievel Is Glauque :: Rong Weicknes

Fievel is Glauque is as pop as ever in their new single "As Above So Below," from Rong Weickness, their forthcoming album. The frenetic chord changes and Stereolab meets Tori Kudo meets Guillermo Klein aesthetic are still there, but now Ma Clement's honey-waxed high notes are allowed more space to shine, favored by the tight production and arrangement of the track . . .

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Amelia Courthouse :: Broken Things

On her second album under her Amelia Courthouse moniker, Leah Toth crafts a work of American hauntology. Wrought with church organ, field recordings, ambient hiss and a faded hymnal, the stark and lovely broken things is curiously permeated by religion's absences and presences . . .

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Ginger Root :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Ahead of forthcoming record SHINBANGUMI, Ginger Root joins us to discuss the musical and visual world building that went into the endeavor. Drawing on new horizons as well as the pastiche of eighties City Pop and vintage soul, we explore a deep dive into the musician and filmmaker's meticulously crafted cinematic world. Plus, recording drums in a dusty karaoke bar and the importance of Glen Campbell covers . . .

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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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Johnny Smith feat. Stan Getz :: Moonlight In Vermont (1956)

Released in 1956 by Royal Roost, Moonlight in Vermont shines the brightest when it allows itself to breathe — to play in the relaxed tempos of ballads, when Smith's technical precision can coalesce with his delicate touch . . .

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Transmissions :: Amelia Courthouse

This week on Transmissions, the return of Leah Toth, aka Amelia Courthouse. She was last here on the podcast in its earlier, more feral incarnation—and by feral we mean "updated with elss regularity"—but back in 2018 she reviewed Shinya Fukumori Trio’s incredible ECM release For 2 Akis. We've wanted to have Leah back on ever since, and this now we've got a great excuse to do so: the release of her incredible new album under the Amelia Courthouse name, broken things. Blending Protestant solemnity with dream pop bliss with extended, meditative ambient music and skeletal . . .

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Erlend Øye & La Comitiva

Erlend Oye is back with a new solo project following the Kings of Convenience homecoming of 2021. One can hear echoes of the aristocratic tranquility of the Norwegian duo's last record of in the soothing, breathable music of La Comitiva, as well as influences from musica leggera and Sicilian folk (which Oye seems enamored with since moving to Italy in 2013), plus flamenco phrasings, bolero intonations, and the occasional bouncy rhythms of calypso and range-restrained quick-strumming of samba . . .

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: Caleb Dailey

Phoenix songwriter Caleb Dailey's voice is a warm, enveloping thing. On his solo debut, 2022 LP Warm Evenings, Pale Mornings: Beside You Then, he applied it to a survey of country and western music, covering songs by Gordon Lightfoot, Waylon Jennings, Blaze Foley, Chip Moman, and more. But the album was far from an exercise in retro country—in these timeworn songs, Dailey finds a site for experimentation, ambient textures, and smoked out soundscapes. For his Lagniappe session, brings a similar sense of vision and mystery to selections by Skeeter Davis and NRBQ, Leroy Van Dyke, and Lucinda Williams . . .

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George Cromarty :: The Wind In The Heather

1984's The Wind in the Heather finds Cromarty evolving from folk-blues purist to a cosmopolitan songcrafter fully aware of the environment in which he created. From the outset, the listener finds that Cromarty is still a powerhouse of the alternating thumbed bassline though he has picked up some new tricks. Incorporating flamenco style strumming, quick runs of clusterchorded breakdowns, and, importantly, that ever elusive idea of ‘space’ within the composition expand his sound beyond the decades-old template dictating the cornerstones of Guitar Soli . . .

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Dorothy Carter :: Troubadour

Dorothy Carter began her musical career in the avant-garde and ended up an early music revivalist/popularizer. In between these two poles, she made two records that fittingly reside somewhere in the middle. For her first solo album, Troubadour, originally released in 1976 on her own label and now reissued by Drag City, she explored more traditional zones, evoking and interpreting gnostic hymns, ancient airs and cosmic carols with fidelity and freshness . . .

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Peter Rowan (Old and In The Way) :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Peter Rowan’s brand of bluegrass has always been hard to pin down. He’s always been near the genre but always pushing the form forward, past the forefathers of the genre and into something new. In 1973, he moved out West, returning to his roots of straight bluegrass. Working with Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, John Kahn, and Vassar Clements, they created a short-lived but widely celebrated outlet: Old and In The Way. He joins us to discuss . . .

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Setting :: At Eulogy

With just one studio album, and now two live releases under their belt, North Carolina's Setting trio of Nathan Bowles, Jaime Fennelly and Joe Westerlund is rapidly becoming one of the most rewarding improvisational outfits on the American music scene. This new one, from a June 2024 show in Asheville, showcases Setting as some kind of postminimalist jam band--all driving rhythms and humongous, multicolored drones . . .

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