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Sam Amidon : Salt River : Aquarium Drunkard
The big news about Salt River is the collaboration with Sam Gendel, a celebrated jazz saxophonist who has worked with Amidon in various roles since 2017. However, aside from an extended reedy flight of fancy in “Tavern,” Gendel’s role as producer is primarily to get out of the way, and let Amidon be Amidon, his folky experiments haloed by an aura of extraordinary clarity.
The Dave Pike Set : Infra-Red : Aquarium Drunkard
The Detroit-born vibraphonist and marimba player Dave Pike was a veteran of flautist Herbie Mann's early 60s soul jazz groups, and a leader who had recorded with Bill Evans, Reggie Workman and Herbie Hancock, when he decamped for Europe in the late 1960s. There he hooked up with stellar guitarist Volker Kriegel, bassist J.A. Rettenbacher, and drummer Peter Baumeister to form the short-lived Dave Pike Set and record for the adventurous German MPS Records label. The Pike Set's recently reissued third album Infra-Red from 1970 reveals a psychedelic groove band as capable of trippy flights as they were funky breakdowns.
Mogwai : The Bad Fire : Aquarium Drunkard
Mogwai’s 11th album takes another sludgy trudge through ambient beauty, delineating radiant architectures of synth and kicking them into gear with a jet-engine roar. They’re still world champions at WTF song titles, offering up “Pale Vegan Hip Pain” and the Philip K. Dick-referencing “If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others” this time, among others, and still among the best at raising an anthemic, cathedral-vaulted ruckus. Producer John Congleton, an adept at infusing loud sounds with pristine clarity, captures plaintive ache and triumphant crescendo here, distilling Mogwai’s essence into its purest elements.
Grooves Outside The Academy: An Interview with Peter Gordon from Love of Life Orchestra (Part 1) : Aquarium Drunkard
An almost Zelig-like figure whose life and career has seen him careen from postmodern rock and jittery Downtown dance music ensembles, to opera and theater pieces, orchestral works, contemporary DJ culture, and so much more, Peter Gordon is the type of multifaceted artist whose wide range of interests have made him something of a cornerstone of underground music culture in New York City for well over four decades now. Even if few people outside of New York know who he is. And even there he’s not a household name. But that hasn’t stopped him from casting a wide net of influence over present-day sonic exploration, in all of its various forms.
Like A Corkscrew To My Heart: Blood On The Tracks Reimagined : Aquarium Drunkard
As if to illustrate the neverendless aspect of Blood On The Tracks, Dylan has refused to let these songs settle into a final form; over the past half-century, he’s delighted in adding new verses, switching pronouns and perspectives, introducing new (sometimes very weird) arrangements. “Everything up to that point had been left unresolved,” he sings in “Shelter From The Storm.” And even in 2025, this is an album that still feels beautifully unresolved; you’ll hear it one way today and another way tomorrow. It’s open to interpretation — and interpretations are what we’ve got here, a re-imagining of Blood On The Tracks via some inspired covers. You may know every scene by heart, but there’s still more to discover.
Lamentations: Twenty-Two Songs about John Coltrane : Aquarium Drunkard
In the nearly six decades since his untimely passing, musicians from all over the world have never stopped honoring John Coltrane. And not just artists in the jazz tradition, those in rock, funk, prog and soul as well. We put together a compilation of twenty-two of our favorite tributes to the visionary saxophonist. In the extraordinary variety of ways musicians have chosen to honor him, you can see an outline of the magnitude of his impact on modern music.
Hemlock : November : Aquarium Drunkard
The 30-track collection November immerses listeners in process, allowing one to follow along as Carolina Chauffe jots down musical notes and sketches, some of them to be developed later, others not. We wrote about Hemlock's 444 LP not too long ago, a sort of greatest hits constructed out of Chauffe’s daily songwriting devotion, but appreciate the diversions and half-successes and byways of this collection. Some days yield gemlike beauties, others not, but it is all about the journey.
Mt. Misery : Love In Mind : Aquarium Drunkard
If one yearns to take solace in a breezy, hypnotic collection of guitar pop, Love In Mind is the antidote. There's a chiming whimsy reminiscent of Teenage Fanclub at their most melodic (such as the compositions of departed songwriter Gerard Love). Lyrically, the jovial and wide-eyed buoyancy of tracks like "Sunday Song" and "Waking Up" will specifically remind TFC heads of classic, Big Star-inspired efforts like Songs From Northern Britain. If the comparison seems too evident to ignore (or one to fellow Scottish legends Belle and Sebastian), the young band actually welcomes it like a badge of honor.
Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard : January 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. This month, Wilcox continues his annual January tradition of sharing a host of Neil Young rarities — outtakes, live recordings and more, spanning a half-century. Then, Chad delivers a an hour of psychedelic folk, ambient music & orchestral pop. Sunday, 4-6pm PT.
Big Bend : Last Circle In A Slowdown : Aquarium Drunkard
The third album from pianist/singer Nathan Phillips’ Big Bend project blends experimental methods with time-tested tradition. Working with avant-jazz master Shahzad Ismaily and a varied ensemble including Jen Powers of Rolin/Powers Duo and violinist Zosha Warpeha, Phillips transforms delicate folk songs into strange collages and elliptical ballads. At times reminiscent of the fluid, gauzy extrapolations of Talk Talk, Last Circle in a Slowdown might have more in common with Joan of Arc’s controversial ProTools workout The Gap. But Big Bend doesn’t embrace the alienation that comes with such studio manipulation and digital disruption, instead finding a lithe grace in the interstices of the regular and the revolutionary. Untroubled but eerie, Big Bend finds its own kind of ambiguous beauty.
Nyron Higor : S/T : Aquarium Drunkard
Nyron Higor's self-titled sophomore LP starts with a slow-motion frevo that drags amidst the reverb as if it was played inside a ghost motel. It is a perfect encapsulation of the Brazilian multi-instrumentalist's new release: clouds of sonic niceties sculpted from the ruins of library music. Here, bird-like whistles and tremolos emerge into eerie atmospheres, from which they seem detached, like ground and figure.
Television : CBGB, Early 1975 : Aquarium Drunkard
A hack Hollywood filmmaker would likely use cliched/corny smash cuts to convey the kinetic energy of NYC’s burgeoning mid-seventies punk scene. The tapes tell a different story, with history unspooling at a leisurely pace. These audience recordings of Television at CBGB during a long winter residency at the club — dangerously lo-fi, utterly priceless — are full of awkward tuning breaks, persistent amplifier hum, muttered introductions, cacophonous false starts, muted applause. Something’s happening here, but no one is quite sure what it is.
Johnny Coley : Mister Sweet Whisper : Aquarium Drunkard
Like some strange offspring of William Burroughs and Chet Baker backed by The Lounge Lizards, Birmingham, Alabama’s Johnny Coley delivers southern gothic beat poetry in a leathery, slurring wobble on Mister Sweet Whisper. His words, backed by a group of local young musicians from the Sweat Wreath label on guitar, upright bass, vibraphone, saxophone, and organ, are lysergic and hallucinatory incantations–nocturnal, perverse, slithering, and hilarious.
A Picnic Of Sorts : Mobile : Aquarium Drunkard
A marvel of sweet synthesizers, field recordings, and beyond, A Picnic Of Sorts’ debut compact disc envelops the listener in a subtly immersive ambient landscape. Mobile sounds fantastic in any listening situation — through headphones, turned up loud to fill the room, or (best of all maybe) as the soundtrack to a long drive with no particular destination in mind.
The Weather Station : Humanhood : Aquarium Drunkard
Tamara Lindeman is the Weather Station, for all intents and purposes, so what’s remarkable about her seventh album is how she slips into the mix. She flutters and flourishes like a wild jazz flute. She eddies and cascades in slithery runs. She matches the syncopated stop-go of a piano run, her voice just off center enough to be interesting. She spits out knotty strings of striking imagery. But she does it all as another instrument in a breezy, jazzy mix, as significant but no more so than complicated patterns of percussion, sharp outbursts of flute and cloudier eruptions of saxophone, or the intricate interplay of keyboards, guitars, bass.
Steven R. Smith : Triecade : Aquarium Drunkard
With his new album, Triecade, Los Angeles-based guitarist, artist and composer Steven R. Smith marks three decades of releasing music. Since his early days amidst the Jewelled Antler collective, Smith has put out some fifty records under half a dozen different monikers. Taken in its totality, his catalog comprises an almanac of forgotten countries, ruined cities and faded empires, a sketchbook of improbable flora and fauna. It is one of the most enchanting and labyrinthine discographies in modern American music.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy : The Purple Bird : Aquarium Drunkard
The Purple Bird is more overtly country than the last few Bonnie “Prince” Billy albums, certainly more so than the droning, mesmeric Lungfish homage in Hear the Children Sing the Evidence from 2024 or even the campfire folk communal Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You from 2023. Of course, threads of rural traditions in country, bluegrass and shape not singing have always woven through Oldham’s work, so it’s not a dramatic departure. Still, this is an album made in Nashville with Nashville musicians and a celebrated Nashville producer, and the twang factor is high.
Tree Rings as Fingerprints : Derek Piotr & Scott Solter on Fieldwork Archive : Aquarium Drunkard
Folklorist Derek Piotr recently issued his 1,000th field recording. Alongside his own solo work, he's overseen the Derek Piotr Fieldwork Archive since 2020—a collection of field recordings that mostly showcase what Piotr dubs a “non-singer”: someone with no background in vocal performance who nevertheless sings a folk song as remembered through oral tradition.
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks : Pig Lib : Aquarium Drunkard
Despite a slew of great tunes, Stephen Malkmus’ self-titled, post-Pavement debut felt restrained, reining in his more extreme tendencies. This is in stark contrast to the follow up record, 2003’s Pig Lib. Credited to Malkmus and the Jicks, this is the first record where SM is thinking of himself as a member of the rock band The Jicks. And as a Jick, Malkmus can to lean into his extremes (guitar indulgence, poetic weirdness), and it shows.
Sun Ra & His Arkestra : Kingdom of Discipline : Aquarium Drunkard
There's always so much Sun Ra music to experience. But even among all the riches, Dead Currencies' Ra comp Kingdom of Discipline is a special piece: released in an edition of 75, it speaks to Ra as an independent media pioneer as much as a jazz composer.
Ralph Towner : The Aquarium Drunkard Interview : Aquarium Drunkard
As a member of the pioneering chamber/world/GORP jazz group Oregon, as a solo artist and leader or co-leader, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/composer Ralph Towner has been making wide-ranging, pigeonhole-defying music for more than half a century. Speaking to Aquarium Drunkard from his home in Rome, Towner was happy to look back at a few of the many highlights of his remarkable and varied career, from including but not limited to all-night concerts in the ‘70s, an impromptu jam session with Sonny Rollins, his jazz-snob regrets, kicking Bill Evans off the piano, looking for a sex-free crash tent at Woodstock, meeting astronauts and the vicissitudes of selenography. Most importantly, he showed that, nearing his 85th birthday, his musical mind is as restless and active as ever, even if there’s still one instrument he’ll never, ever play.
Keith Jarrett : Live In Norway, 1972 (Molde Jazz Festival) : Aquarium Drunkard
August 2, 1972. Keith Jarrett performing solo in Molde, Norway the at the eleventh annual Molde Jazz Festival. Clocking in at 46 minutes, the concert is comprised of one continuous improvisation that Jarrett dubbed "Molde-72". This recording was later paired with Jarrett's return performance at the festival the following summer as the 2-CD collection, Keith Jarrett – Molde Jazz Festival 1972 & 1973 -- a 2021 Japanese import.
The Aquarium Drunkard Radio Holiday Nog Spectacular : Christmas Day 2024 : Aquarium Drunkard
Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays. Tonight, suit up, it’s Aquarium Drunkard’s annual seasonal spectacular.
Grey On Gray II : A December Mixtape : Aquarium Drunkard
For the darkest time of year, a wintry mix of stark sonic landscapes — jazz, ambient, acoustic and unclassifiable. Instrumental treks through the snow, hopefully with a mug of hot chocolate (or something stronger) awaiting you at your final destination.
Videodrome : Christmas Evil (1980) : Aquarium Drunkard
Christmas Evil may seem like a hokey slasher film done up in garland and wreaths, but it's a tragic character study that speaks directly to the motifs of the holiday season. With the thematic tissue of a Christmas film and the derangement of a horror film, filmmakers such as John Waters have referred to Christmas Evil as "the greatest Christmas film of all time."
Joel Paterson : Hi-Fi Christmas Guitar : Aquarium Drunkard
Harkening back to a bygone era of multi-tracking techniques, Hi-Fi Christmas Guitar finds guitarist Joel Paterson paying tribute to Les Paul and Chet Atkins through the vessel of Christmas standards. Hang the mistletoe, crank up the Echoplex, and let the yuletide spirit roll.
Amen Dunes : Death Jokes II : Aquarium Drunkard
Damon McMahon clears away the complications that befuddled his intricate, sample-heavy Death Jokes album to reveal the lucid, often beautiful melodies underneath. In what the artist has stated will be his last album as Amen Dunes, he circles back to the eerie simplicity of the song, and it works in a big way. With Death Jokes II, McMahon pares down the excess and focuses on pure melody. His voice does most of the work on this remix, in all its wobble-prone, echo-shrouded, vulnerable sincerity.
John Zorn : A Dreamers Christmas : Aquarium Drunkard
The Dreamers have always been John Zorn's most immediately appealing project. With The Dreamers, Zorn finally set aside the kabbalistic solemnity that suffused so much of his late 90s work in favor of the pulpier, less austere sounds of exotica, surf, lounge, library music and mod jazz. When Zorn's combo applied their considerable skills to classic holiday fare in 2011, they managed to make one of the greatest and grooviest Christmas albums of all time.
Sam Wilkes : The Aquarium Drunkard Interview : Aquarium Drunkard
Jazz in Los Angeles is blooming right now. Thanks in part to concert promoters like Yousef Hilmy of Minaret Records, people across the city are hearing a wide range of improvisational music styles in bars, stores, churches, and gardens that now moonlight as jazz venues. Sam Wilkes, a bass player, composer, arranger, and bandleader, is one of the most sought-after musicians in that scene.
Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard : December 2024 : 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. This month, Wilcox leads things off with a very wintry mix of stark sonic landscapes; DePasquale follows it up with an hour of baroque pop, post-punk & lo-fi soul. Sunday, 4-6pm PT.
Tony Rice Unit : Unit of Measure : Aquarium Drunkard
Truly, many of Tony Rice’s latter projects cannot be classified within a set genre but instead exist within the universal realm of ‘Guitar Music.’ On Unit of Measure, the picker continues to bare this distinction despite a more deliberate leaning-in toward tradition. After venturing to nearly every corner of the traditional music scene (and beyond), the peripheral experiences converge as a creative catalyst to Rice’s untimely and final reinvention of Bluegrass music.
Terry Riley : Shri Camel : Aquarium Drunkard
Incredibly, Terry Riley's 1980 mid-period classic Shri Camel had never been reissued on vinyl until last month. But Real Gone Music's new edition gives listeners a fresh opportunity to revisit what was arguably the studio culmination of Riley's solo organ-and-tape-delay performances of the 1970s. Over the course of four long movements, Shri Camel alternates between almost overwhelming spiritual intensity and mischievous humor and joy.
An Oscar Peterson Christmas : Aquarium Drunkard
Released in 1995, An Oscar Peterson Christmas finds the seventy-year-old jazz veteran comfortably gliding through fourteen Christmas standards. It’s cozy, warm, and familiar — everything one could hope for from a jazz record to soundtrack the holiday season.