Last year, Sandro Perri returned with In Another Life, his first proper long-player in the better part of a decade, and a self-proclaimed experiment in “infinite songwriting.” Now Perri has turned around with something of a companion piece: an extension of his immeasurable pop sensibilities in the form of an album entitled Soft Landing.
Sheathed in obscurity following its 1972 release in Italy, Peace on You – the sole long-player from Ghana’s Mack Porter – is a true outlier gem of blues, soul, and psychedelic rock. With its dramatic David Axelrod-esque arrangements and Porter’s blurry, mirage-like lines between Hendrix soul and doomy Sabbath riffs, the record exists on a plane of rarity entirely its own.
Tinariwen’s eighth album, “Amadjar,” was conceived on the road. Following an appearance Taragalte Festival in the Moroccan Sahara, the group traveled to Mauritania trailed by their French production team, in a camper van. Songs were put together during this road trip in a traditional Tamasheq manner, built up via conversations and playing around campfires.
The album that keeps on giving – Shintaro Sakamoto’s 2011 debut, How To Live With A Phantom. Following his two decade involvement with Japanese psych-rockers Yura Yura Teikoku, Sakamoto eased into second gear with Phantom, assembling a heady quilt with nods to euro-lounge, exotica, funk and 70s crystalline pop.
June 14th marked the return of Bill Callahan, via his latest record — the double lp, Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest. One of our favorite listens this year, we asked singer/songwriter Jerry David DeCicca to catch up with the artist on our behalf as they embarked a short west coast tour together. Their conversation can be read, here …
The second song released from her upcoming lp Like the River Loves the Sea, Joan Shelley’s “Cycle,” feels suspended in mid-air, a tale of a romance that keeps finding back itself where it started. “The best music would be a conversation with the divine…” says Shelley. “These songs are partly that conversation, at times through the lens of lovers.”
The songwriting vehicle of Erin Birgy, Mega Bog bathes in the multiplicity of the human condition via an ever-eccentric blend of oblique pop experimentalism. Anchored by Birgy’s ethereal yet fixed vocals, sonically, the project leans as deftly into Badalamenti-esque jazz-scapes as it does biting, angular art-rock.
“There’s a part of me that feels like music is about form and experimentation and learning and working with materials, and then there’s another part of me that knows that music’s just got to be this intuitive, continuous sort of spirit work.”
Ana Frango Elétrico hails from Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Released last week, her new record, Little Electric Chicken Heart, marks the artist’s third album in just 18 months. Biographical information online may be scant, but, no matter — the music speaks for itself.
Equinox edition. Welcome to the September episode of our monthly Transmissions Podcast, our series of conversations with musicians and artists about why—and how—their art exists. This time out, Aquarium Drunkard founder Justin Gage sits down at AD HQ with Devendra Banhart to spin selections and discuss his new album, Ma. Then, Jason P. Woodbury joins Throwing Muses founder, solo artist, and writer Kristin Hersh backstage to discuss future sounds from Throwing Muses and Don’t Suck, Don’t Die, her book about her friend, the departed Vic Chesnutt. And to close out, Jason rings up Bill Orcutt, whose latest release, the sparse electric guitar noir, Odds Against Tomorrow, sees release October 11th.
On its debut album, Phantom Rhythm, guitar and bass duo Gong Gong Gong draw on the buzzy rock ‘n’ roll bedrock of Bo Diddley and the mesmerizing solos of West African desert blues, twisting up music traditions like Henry Flynt and 75 Dollar Bill, expanding into vast and enveloping territories that sound like a desert rave after sundown.
Equinox especial, crossing the celestial equator, heading southward. The Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XM radio ~ Channel 35. Wednesdays / 7pm California time + on-demand.
34.1090° N, 118.2334° W
You can download the Pastiche Beach mix, aired during hour two, via our Patreon, HERE.
It’s common knowledge amongst armchair pop music historians that The Beatles album Rubber Soul inspired The Beach Boys’ creative genius Brian Wilson to raise the bar for the group’s seminal sleeper album Pet Sounds and that album, in turn, galvanized The Beatles to respond with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That’s usually where the factoid ends, but there’s another iconic album that emerged from this friendly transatlantic competition that perfectly encapsulates the zeitgeist of late-sixties pop-psychedelia and continues to inspire musicians around the world: The Zombies’ Odessey & Oracle.
Musician-folklorist-documentarian-artist John Cohen died September 16 at the age of 87. Here, archivist and guitarist Nathan Salsburg offers a remembrance of his life and work.
With her debut solo lp Karaoke Angel Molly Sarlé of Mountain Man has built a monument to her own movements, a West Coast to New York to Appalachia travelogue, but also an internal map vivid with detail and feeling.
(welcome to ‘blanks and postage’ — author jesse jarnow’s monthly column for aquarium drunkard highlighting the heady, askew…and beyond.)
When We Are Inhuman, the beguiling new album billed to Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Bryce Dessner, and Eighth Blackbird, begins with quarter note pulses from a single instrument. Alternating pulses from a second and then a third instrument join in before ultimately giving way to the melody of “Beast For Thee,” a song originally heard on Superwolf — the tremendous 2005 collaborative album by Bonnie “Prince” Billy and guitarist Matt Sweeney. […]
… Lando’s album from that milestone year (1975), Independência, is an idealistic marker in the midst of the struggle between an oppressive past and an uncertain future for the Angolan state and its society. His pleas for peace are the foundation for this stunning and confident record, singing of love and freedom in Portuguese, the colonial language
Despite what the thermostat may read, autumn officially begins in 10 days. As we collectively ponder the year 2020, dig into this latest installment of Bandcamping, our regular cruise through the service’s ever-expanding offerings. Press play, skip the middleman and put some cash directly into artists’ and labels’ pockets. Hear a new world!
If Dylan Moon’s Only The Blues was released in the 1960s or ’70s, it could have been a gorgeous private press loner obscurity like Dave Bixby’s Ode To Quetzalcoatl, discovered by waxidermists decades later. If it was released in the ’80s, it could have been a proto-synth-pop masterpiece like Nick Nicely’s “D.C.T. Dreams” that magically caught the ear of a major label. If it was released in the ’90s, it could have landed on K Records, Shrimper, or maybe even Flying Nun.
