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Teo’s Bag: Constructing Bitches Brew : Aquarium Drunkard
55 years on, Miles Davis’ 1970 opus, Bitches Brew remains as mind-bending as ever, but its most enduring influence may lie in its innovative construction. A deeper look at Teo Macero’s methods and madness, paired with a 2-hour collection of unused session reels expands its universe.
PJ Harvey : To Bring You My Love at 30 : Aquarium Drunkard
Harvey made To Bring You My Love at the age of 25. The album was her third full-length, and the first to explore a career-spanning collaborative partnership with Jon Parish. Other musicians contributed, notably Bad Seeds veteran Mick Harvey, drummer Jean-Marc Butty and Joe Gore, but the album takes it shape from the fluid interactions of Harvey and Parish, often both of them playing guitars at once.
Cooper Crain : The Aquarium Drunkard Interview : Aquarium Drunkard
Cooper Crain is a bandleader, band member, producer, engineer, mixer, songwriter, improviser, and a player of organs, synths, guitars, and much more. First coming up as a member of the psychedelic, grooved-based Cave and then gaining more prominence with the hypnotic, meditative, and powerful Bitchin Bajas. The Bajas return this month with their new LP , marking their second collaboration with Natural Information Society. We caught up with Crain to discuss this latest collaboration, the art of mixing and editing music, and a selection of the musical projects that he's worked on over the past several years.
Transmissions : William Tyler (2025) : Aquarium Drunkard
William Tyler joins Transmissions for a time-bending talk about his new record, Time Indefinite, out this week via Psychic Hotline. On this episode of the show, we toss out the script in favor of following Tyler’s thoughts; like the indefinite time his new album references, linearity isn’t always the focus in this talk. And while we touch on more than a few heavy topics, including addiction, climate change, and the sad state of satirical art, this one is an entry in our "hangout episodes" series.
The Lemon Pipers : Through With You : Aquarium Drunkard
Nine-minute psychedelic opus "Through With You" landing on the same record as 1968'a chart-topping pop gem "Green Tambourine" is the crux of the bizarre duality of the Lemon Pipers saga. Though gaining admiration from the likes of Moby Grape, the "Eight Miles High" meets "Interstellar Overdrive" ripper was the intentional antithesis of the polished bubblegum sound that the label had orchestrated. It's a real hidden reward for those who ventured to the end of the decisively mixed bag of a record.
Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard : April 2025 : Aquarium Drunkard
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. For April, Tyler kicks it off with an hour's worth of recent, semi-soothing instrumental zones, and Chad follows with a mix of dream pop, experimental rock and a splash of springtime bossa nova. Sunday, 4-6pm PT.
In Walked Herbie : On The Outward Spiral of Herbie Nichols : Aquarium Drunkard
In July, 1946, a 28-year-old Herbie Nichols visited the apartment of the 30-year-old Thelonious Monk. Nichols was there on 63rd Street to interview Monk for the Black-owned entertainment periodical Rhythm: Music and Theatrical Magazine, a visit which culminated in Monk performing his “Ruby, My Dear” on his Klein piano, which Nichols wrote was, “one of the greatest pleasures I’ve had listening to jazz.”
The Lagniappe Sessions : Nap Eyes : Aquarium Drunkard
Nova Scotian quartet Nap Eyes have the right stuff: eclectic and clattering rock & roll moves, a distinct zone, and best of all, sly and quixotic lyrics. On their latest, 2024's The Neon Gate, songwriter Nigel Chapman manages to pull in nods to Nintendo 64 games, Russian poets, French filmmaker Chris Marker, and Goo Goo Dolls megahits, resulting in a work that feels real and lived in in a way that so many of their indie rock contemporaries fail to achieve. For their second Lagniappe Session, they cover Kathy Heideman and The Tragically Hip.
The Ex : If Your Mirror Breaks : Aquarium Drunkard
If Your Mirror Breaks is the Ex’s 19th full-length album. The band, extant since the late 1970s, has collaborated with everyone from the Mekons and Sonic Youth to Ethio-jazz saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya. Their music started in punk but has, over time, incorporated many other genres, including free jazz, noise and non-western music from Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East ...
Beverly Kenney : Born To Be Blue (1959) : Aquarium Drunkard
Once championed to eclipse the likes of June Christy and Chris Connor, Beverly Kenney was found dead a few months after the release of Born To Be Blue (1959), wearing only a pink nightgown and surrounded by empty bottles and scattered pills. With this in mind, the album takes on a haunted quality, and Kenney becomes an enigmatic figure whose legacy exists in the twilight of myth and verity. If there were a Mount Rushmore of "Midnite Jazz" artists, Kenney would be on it, her short life as bittersweet as the songs she sang.
Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes : Aquarium Drunkard
In the latest permutation of the adventurous L.A. jazz group SML, guitarist Gregory Ulhmann and saxophonist Josh Johnson are joined by bassist Sam Wilkes, for an album that both deepens and expands the SML project. Looking back to bebop and drifting through post-rock, with pit stops at Jaco Pastorius, Lyle Mays and the Beatles, Uhlmann/Johnson/Wilkes is unafraid to embrace the beautiful, even as it remains committed to experimentation and smooth radicalism.
Shudder To Think : Pony Express Record : Aquarium Drunkard
Shudder to Think's art rock masterpiece Pony Express Record. With roots in Washington D.C.s legendary post-punk scene the band started out from the onset as a square peg in a round hole. Not unlike Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica there was little to prepare the listener for the band's forward thinking vision of the future.
Liam Grant : Prodigal Son : Aquarium Drunkard
With Prodigal Son, fingerstyle rambler Liam Grant continues his investigation into lineage and place with quite possibly the rawest, loudest acoustic guitar recording you’ll hear all year. Casting aside delicate precision, Grant offers up unwieldy and elemental excursions that reach from the well-trod terra firma and wreath themselves into a knotty concentric circle inside the heart of contemporary guitar soli.
Maynard Ferguson : Chala Nata : Aquarium Drunkard
The winding path that took Maynard Ferguson from Canadian-musical-child prodigy to Hollywood hired-gun, Birdland mainstay to featured performer under Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic, to Timothy Leary and Ram Dass roommate on the psychedelic Hitchcock estate in Millbrook, NY, to the grounds of a school founded by the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti in Madras, India led to England. And back to the big band sound.
Pavement : Wowee Zowee at 30 : Aquarium Drunkard
Pavement albums often invite their own retrospection. Stephen Malkmus sprinkled the first two LPs with clues to his anxieties around his musical reception, but on their third album, Wowee Zowee, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, Pavement is light on the lyrical breadcrumbs. Contemporary critics so badly wanted to read the album as a self-conscious turn away from success. But in reality, it was Malkmus and co. doing exactly what put them on the precipice of success in the first place: leaning into their own artistic self-assurance.
Pink Cloud Motel : A Mixtape : Aquarium Drunkard
Sixteen tracks spread over two continents, it's springtime at the Pink Cloud Motel. Hyacinth and citrus with the windows rolled down half mast -- shades of palm fronds, fresh cut grass, 501 cutoffs, Modelo and watery domestics. Late check-outs encouraged ...
Jerry David DeCicca : Cardiac Country : Aquarium Drunkard
DeCicca’s records are always good, but this one is especially striking. The writing, the playing, the singing, the arrangements, all work together in an unshowy but very satisfying way. A high note in an already impressive career, these songs interleave the sweet transitory pleasures of living here on earth with an awareness of the unknowable beyond.
The Will Oldham Live Show Archive : Aquarium Drunkard
Speaking of Will Oldham ... just when you thought ye olde world wide web had become, staid, predictable and boring, one happens upon something like this: The Will Oldham Live Show Archive. Made available via Bandcamp, and free to download, dig into various vintage Palace Brothers / Bonnie 'Prince' Billy live gigs dating back to the '90s.
Seefeel : Quique (2025 Reissue) : Aquarium Drunkard
A scary 32 years ago Londoners Seefeel unleashed their (predominantly) instrumental masterwork Quique on the Too Pure imprint. Effortlessly straddling post-rock and electronic realms might not seem a huge deal today, but back in 1993 it felt almost miraculous. Masters of balancing repetition with subtle, sparkling bejeweled details, Seefeel hit their peak on the album and 32 years later it still sounds timeless. The 2025 reissue comes in several guises – a standard vinyl reissue of the album as it was released in 1993 and a reissue of the 2007 redux edition boasting no less than nine additional tracks including some remixes as well as entirely new pieces.
Aquarium Drunkard Presents: Etran De L'Aïr, Teragram Ballroom | April 19, 2025 : Aquarium Drunkard
Via Agadez, Niger, Etran De L'Aïr touch down in Los Angeles later this month at the Teragram Ballroom. 100% Sahara Guitar, indeed. Maya Ongaku supports. We have five pairs of tickets saved for AD members.
Dean Wareham : The Aquarium Drunkard Interview : Aquarium Drunkard
“What they want you to be — yesterday’s hero, yesterday’s ghost,” Dean Wareham sings on his latest record, That’s the Price of Loving Me, released this spring on Carpark Records. But the album’s 10 masterful tracks prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Wareham isn’t fading away anytime soon. Bolstered by chiming guitars, sweet string arrangements and gorgeous backing vocals from Luna bassist Britta Phillips, it’s another masterpiece in a career full of them, stretching all the way back to Dean’s days with Galaxie 500.
Jimmy Buffett : Great Heart (Documentary) : Aquarium Drunkard
Chase Coble spent a decade working for Jimmy Buffett as one of his video editors/videographers archiving hundreds of hours of Buffet's near-constant daily video footage. Upon his death in 2003, Coble compiled the following 44 minute supercut glimpsing the world through Buffet's eyes. There's no concert footage, just the man he truly was, a human who walked this earth for a moment in time and was curious and high on life.
Sepe : Georgia : Aquarium Drunkard
Drifting between lo-fi, country-inflected jangle pop and dazed, DIY garage rock, Sepe sounds like a basement bound troubadour, sauntering over fuzzy, home-recorded guitar, bass, and drums. The new recording project of LA-based Brandon Sepe (The Pesos, semi trucks, seventies tuberide) debuts with “Georgia,” the first tune shared off his forthcoming album, National Accessory, which lands in June on Universal Freeing Object.
Videodrome : A Good Band Is Easy To Kill (2005) : Aquarium Drunkard
A Good Band Is Easy To Kill documents the final tour of indie-pop band Beulah in the fall of 2003. Although in many ways an early-aughts time capsule from over twenty years ago, the documentary showcases how little has changed for touring indie bands and the tribulations of life on the road.
Tortoise : Bimbo's, San Francisco, May 25, 1996 : Aquarium Drunkard
With more-than-welcome new jams from Tortoise hitting this month, it's a good time to dig back into the band's extensive live collection on Archive.org. If you're looking for somewhere to start, you can't go wrong with this 1996 gig at Bimbo's in San Francisco. The David Pajo-era lineup of Tortoise starts out soaring with a gorgeous “Gamera” and pretty much stays at a beautiful elevation for the rest of the show.
Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta : Mapambazuko : Aquarium Drunkard
Peruvian artist, researcher, and sound experimentalist Alejandra Cárdenas, who records under the moniker Ale Hop, joins forces with Congolese guitarist Titi Bakorta for the ecstatic Mapambazuko, released earlier this year on the Uganda-based label Nyege Nyege Tapes. Recorded in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, the album’s blend of soukous-infused guitar patterns and industrial-tinged electronics makes for an enthralling listen, where frenetic Congolese rhythms dash and dart across a terrain of glitchy, squeaking oscillations.
Phi-Psonics : New Pyramid : Aquarium Drunkard
Phi-Psonics is a spiritual jazz collective headed by Los Angeles-based composer and acoustic bassist Seth Ford-Young, whose prolific session work can be heard on releases such as the recent stunner by Takuro Okada. The uninhibited, meditative soundscapes of previous studio offerings The Cradle and Octava quickly made waves after catching the attention of Manchester jazz label Gondwana, flashing nods to A Love Supreme and a lush framework playing off of Ford-Young's Mingus-inspired upright bass, lifting woodwinds and the Wurlitzer piano of Mitchell Yoshida.
Veneno : Veneno : Aquarium Drunkard
As the Amadors (notably unaccompanied by the rhythm section) run through a subtle blend of stroke tremolos, arpeggios, and golpes, they remind their elders that they have the utmost respect for their history, clarifying that, actually, there’s so much to get excited about—all of us—and remain so, even decades after the release of this astonishing, idiosyncratic treasure of Spanish rock culture, which surely deserves to be devoured by international listeners, with the same fervor that it is in Spain, at this point in history. Do yourselves a favor.
Babe Rainbow : Slipper imp and shakaerator : Aquarium Drunkard
“What is ashwaganda?” asks the first track of this reggae-jam-surf-groove opus, and fair enough, let’s look it up. Ashwaganda, it turns out, is an evergreen herb that smells a bit like wet horse, commonly prescribed for anxiety and stress. It's a good time all the way through, and maybe that’s enough for now. We’ve had plenty of floating anxiety over the last few years, why not a dose of floating good will?