Reissue of Boards of Canada’s 1998 debut, Music Has The Right To Children. Hasn’t aged a day…
Released in 1975, Old & In The Way was the San Francisco based collaborative bluegrass project of Peter Rowan (guitar, vocals), Vassar Clements (fiddle), Jerry Garcia (banjo, vocals), David Grisman (mandolin, vocals), and John Kahn (string bass). Instant good times.
Here, we get to eavesdrop on Parker, bassist Anna Buttterss, drummer Jay Bellerose and saxophonist Josh Johnson in full freedom flight. It’s an uncommonly intimate live recording — the players seem to be extremely at ease in this small club setting.
Unearthed in 2019, via Far Out Recordings, raw early Azymuth. Two LP set of organic fusion-funk.
On May 26, Aquarium Drunkard and Org Music present Jesus People Music Vol. 2. Culled from the BlackForrestry’s AD mixtapes of obscure ’60s and ’70s Jesus People psych, rock, folk, and country. In advance of this collection’s release, we’re presenting its liner notes, written by Jason P. Woodbury.
Blown out electric Miles, two sides culled from the complete On The Corner Sessions….
Ital and vital. Produced by Joe Gibbs and engineered by Errol Thompson, Prince Far I, aka the Voice Of Thunder, dropped this slab of essential roots reggae in 1976. His grizzled ropeadope delivery scorching the LP’s ten tracks, Far I’s epic toasting (or chanting, as he preferred) is on full display riding a wave of rumbling bass, subtle dub effects, percussion and organ.
This week on Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions: ambient country trio Suss. On their own, Suss members Jonathan Gregg, Bob Holmes, and Pat Irwin have been involved in musical projects, with artists like k.d. Lang, the B-52s, John Cale, David Bowie, Norah Jones, the War on Drugs and Wilco—Irwin even contributed music to Nickelodeon’s Rocko’s Modern Life.
While we wait for Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy, let’s enjoy this wondrous 40+ minutes of the Coltrane Quintet in Finland. Compared to the Village Vanguard tapes from just a few weeks before, the performance is relatively smooth — nothing too outward bound like “India” or “Chasin’ Another Trane.”
Just six cuts make up Waves, that is, five guitar duets and one noise-drone experiment, but all of them are quietly beautiful, bringing together the spirit, the skill, the intelligence of two remarkable guitarists at play.
Compiling 17 tracks across Angolan guitarist, researcher and intellectual Mário Rui Silva’s 1980s output, Stories From Another Time 1982-1988 is an eccentric and engrossing collection of historically informed and forward thinking folk music.
This first taste from the recently launched Madlib Invazion Music Library Series finds JJ Whitefield at the controls with Ethio Meditations / Drama Al Dente. Created over the course of the pandemic, the series self describes as a nod to “the best ‘Music Library’ releases of the past, on labels like Italy’s Sermi, Germany’s Bruton, France’s MP2000 and the UK’s DeWolfe.” Aesthetic ideals achieved, as Whitefield riffs on Ethiopian jazz and psychedelic funk over the course of the LP’s nineteen tracks.
From a studio tucked away in the back of the Ace General Store, a beachy vintage shop some 60 miles inland of the seaside coast of the small Japanese island Enoshima, emits the smoky, alchemic jazz-folk of maya ongaku. A trio of childhood friends—Tsutomu Sonoda on guitar and vocals, Ryota Takano on bass, and Shoei Ikeda on percussion and synth—the band feels fully at peace with itself on its debut album, Approach to Anima, released last month via Guruguru Brain.
Consummate purveyors of ‘American weirdness’, Chicago’s Glyders returned to the fold earlier this year with the release of their latest LP, Maria’s Hunt, via hometown heroes Drag City. Buttressing the album, the band’s Lagniappe Session takes on southern fried Skynyrd, The Damned as chooglers, acoustic Scott Walker and Johnny Mathis by way of the Hoss.
Bonny Doon came together in a scrappy DIY Detroit punk garage scene, but over time has moved towards the sunny clarity of classic pop. The band’s latest album, Let There Be Music, distills exuberant songs to their essence, tamping down the guitar mayhem to make space for the piano and breezy “ooh la las” waft over dreamy hooks.
Here’s one that slipped by us in 2021 — the sophomore LP from the Bloomington, Indiana based jazz quartet, Snaarj. Released eight years after Levels, the group’s 2013 effort, Snaarj II immediately makes up for lost time. Case in point, the album’s longest track, “Parker Groove”. In contrast to album’s beat forward material, the leisurely six-plus minute groove stretches out for a solid four minutes before sliding into its eventual prolonged climax.
Summer is creeping in, and if we’re lucky, we’ll soon be by the water somewhere warm. Cue “Life Go Low,” the easygoing new single from Sam Evian, a track which floats along via a humid groove.
Recorded in a desanctified church outside of Quebec, “Keepers” is the second track off the NY based jazz outfit’s self-titled 2019 lp. Smoky, languid, spiritual and sublime.
While much of the Brazilian pop-music scene was caught up in the groundbreaking fusion of traditional folk stylings with Rock and Roll, Baden Powell was lingering further in the past. Tropicalia was taking the underground by storm; applying fuzz guitar, jazzed out sensibility, and tongue-in-cheek humor to far more danceable and groove-oriented cuts than the Anglo-American scene could comprehend. But prior to Os Mutantes massive breakthrough, Powell was working through his own vision of Brazil’s emergence into the mainstream. In 1966, Tristeza on Guitar was released as an essential first step on the road to full-blown Tropicalia.
Summer is rapidly approaching — and if you need some fresh tunes to soundtrack the next few months, we’ve got recommendations, from Ethiopian pop to well-tuned piano minimalism. Be aware: there’s no Bandcamp Friday this month; the next one hits Aug. 4, 2023. But hey, any day can be Bandcamp Friday if you toss a couple extra dollars onto the asking price of any release on the platform.
