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Culture & Art
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Lifeguard : The Aquarium Drunkard Interview : Aquarium Drunkard
Lifeguard emerged out of the doldrums of the pandemic period, when Chicago’s artistically-inclined young people found themselves forced to fall back on their own resources. Instead of sitting around, bored out of their minds, kids were forming bands, making zines, booking underground shows and connecting with each other outside the regular commercial channels. The scene became known as Hallogallo, a nod to Neu! but also a reference to the original German meaning of the term, “dance party.” It spawned a raft of scrappy young bands, Lifeguard, Horsegirl, Frito and Post Office Lockdown to name a few.
The Bug Club : Very Human Features : Aquarium Drunkard
The Bug Club’s fourth full-length (and second on Sub Pop) swerves giddily pop-ward. The two principals, Sam Willmett and Tilly Harris, toss out the previous album’s hard-charging rock sound like last week’s recycling and settle, instead, on a cuddly twee vibe that matches very well with their fanciful lyrics.
Car Seat Headrest : The Scholars : Aquarium Drunkard
Car Seat Headrest’s 13th album is ambitious in every possible way, from the overarching conceptual framework to the exulting, triumphant sound to the sheer length of the tracks. The new record is that deeply unfashionable thing: a rock opera. Yet the theatricality, the sonic overload, the proggy construction do not, in any way, overburden the tunes, among the strongest and most anthemic of Will Toledo’s hook-laden career.
The Circling Sun : Orbits : Aquarium Drunkard
New Zealand's cosmic jazz ensemble The Circling Sun comes forth with Orbits, the sequel to 2023's Spirits and, like it, deftly serves up Yusef Lateef vibes on a platter. The group has all the irreverence and joy that makes spiritual jazz so compelling versus its more competitive, virtuosity-obsessed co-genres—especially when delivered by a group this numerous (an undectet!), you can almost hear the musicians having fun.
Pachyman : The Aquarium Drunkard Interview : Aquarium Drunkard
Another place, another time. Raised in Puerto Rico and based in Los Angeles, dub master Pachy "Pachyman" Garcia evokes both across the expanse of his latest platter of tricked out riddims, Another Place. His sound is undeniably rooted in the classic dub techniques of King Tubby, Scientist, and Lee "Scratch" Perry, but with the new album Garcia pushes things into new territory. He joins us to discus paying dues and pushing the genre forward.
W. Cullen Hart and Andrew Rieger : Leap Through Poisoned Air : Aquarium Drunkard
Here's an archival gem for Elephant 6 heads: a collaborative EP from the late visionary Will Cullen Hart and Elf Power's Andrew Rieger. Though very brisk, the timing of this snapshot (culled from recording sessions circa 1999-2000) vividly conjures the opaque psychedelic sweet spot of the Olivia Tremor Control and beginnings of Hart's essential offshoot project Circulatory System.
Aquarium Drunkard Book Club : Chapter 33 : Aquarium Drunkard
Welcome back to the stacks. It’s Aquarium Drunkard’s Book Club, our monthly gathering of recent (or not so recent) recommended reading. In this month’s stack: all things Roxy Music, some narco strung out street-lit by way of east Texas, the infinite puzzle that is the crack in the cosmic egg, the ever erudite and entertaining travels of the late Patrick Leigh Fermor, and more. Your librarians for this installment are Justin Gage, Tyler Wilcox, Ian Everett, and Mark Neeley.
Not To Be a Self-Deprecating Guy : Ty Segall Speaks : Aquarium Drunkard
Ty Segall has been making records since 2008, and he’s recorded a lot of them — 16 including his latest Possession, out May 30 on Drag City. We caught up with Segall recently to talk about his dense but uncrowded new set of songs, his partnership with the filmmaker Matt Yoka, his love of old soul and California and the revelatory string of acoustic shows he recently performed across the U.S.
The Budos Band : VII : Aquarium Drunkard
The Budos Band builds a fire with the dry tinder of percussion, cracking and popping on hand and kit drums. It catches in a vaporous pool of keyboards, fuzzy guitar leads and insistent bass, and then jets out in sudden sparks of brass, the heat concentrated in sharp, incendiary bursts. This seventh album from the Brooklyn-born funk/soul/Afrobeat/Ethio-jazz collective rocks a bit harder than some Budos Band offerings but doesn’t mess with the formula. These songs slouch and swagger, grooving from the hip in loose, louche sensuality, but they’re also super on point, the brass coming in like a knife’s edge, the rhythms in ideal, nearly mechanical sync.
Slide On Rainbows : Early Roxy Music In Focus : Aquarium Drunkard
A "state of mind" is how Bryan Ferry once described Roxy Music. Born from art school roots, the early era of the band conjures up all sorts of identifiers, undoubtedly anchored by the visionary presence of Brian Eno, postmodern decadence in the seventies rock hierarchy, and the art-rock genre turning itself inside out. Curating all sorts of Pop Art signifiers from film to the avant-garde to classic Americana pastiche, this angular approach to pop music remains quite unlike anything else that came before or after.
Eli Winter : The Aquarium Drunkard Interview : Aquarium Drunkard
Appearing here at Aquarium Drunkard in 2022 for a Lagniappe Session, Chicago guitarist Eli Winter described one of his cover selections as "Arabian Nightingale" as "arresting, cool, and strange." The three words come to mind regarding his latest LP, A Trick of the Light. Another full-band outing following his self-titled 20202 LP, the recording drifts even deeper into jazz rock territory, pairing Winter's snarling electric guitar lines with drifting pedal steel and sax. Aquarium Drunkard caught up with Winter to discuss the record's genesis and what inspired him to spoof Hot Ones in a music video.
Mal Waldron : Sweet Love, Bitter : Aquarium Drunkard
Clouded by the obscurity of the film itself, Sweet Love, Bitter is a poignant example of the brilliance of jazz pianist/composer Mal Waldron. Adapted from 1961 novel Night Song (loosely inspired by the life and final years of the legendary Charlie Parker), Waldron's soulful soundtrack is the perfect accompaniment to the gritty, somber themes and even lucid dream montages. After decades of languishing in obscurity, Sweet Love, Bitter proves to be a provocative, multi-faceted display of jazz culture.
Cameron Knowler : CRK : Aquarium Drunkard
For the past few years, Cameron Knowler has quietly worked his way into the epicenter of the Soli revival. Making a name for his playing with the excellent Anticipation collaboration with Eli Winter a few years back, Knowler has since become a familiar face in the realm of steel string. Indebted to his instrument’s history; his playing steadfast, concise, and open to the possibility of the unexpected. CRK is no exception to this rule.
Videodrome : SLC Punk! (1998) : Aquarium Drunkard
In many ways, SLC Punk (1998) is a love letter to the punk movement as it existed in the mid-1980s. But it’s also a salient example of “quarter-life crisis cinema,” tackling themes such as identity, disillusionment, and the fear of adulthood during that liminal moment of life when youthful idealism begins to clash with reality.
Transmissions : Damien Jurado : Aquarium Drunkard
This week on the show, something different: an extra-sized Transmission that’s been locked in the vault for years, a two-hour talk with singer/songwriter Damien Jurado. Jurado’s songs are worlds meant to be lived in, full of strange characters in dream states, caught between the static on flickering TV channels, and with this episode, the penultimate, which is a fancy word for “second to last” of our 10th season, we explore those worlds with the man himself.
Sketch Show : Audio Sponge : Aquarium Drunkard
Even for Yellow Magic Orchestra loyalists, the new millennium timing of the short-lived Sketch Show made the project easy to fly under the radar. Audio Sponge is the 2002 debut from duo Hauromi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. While veering back at seminal influences like Brian Wilson, the mellowness of the compositions here are downright hypnotically restrained; a canopy of soft glitch samples, acousto-electric rhythms and relaxed vocals that simply evaporate as soon as they're uttered.
Jess Sah Bi : Jesus-Christ Ne Déçoit Pas : Aquarium Drunkard
Several years after recording the 1985 cult classic Our Garden Needs Its Flowers with Peter One, Ivorian folk musician Jess Sah Bi had a brush with death, falling severely ill with an unknown ailment that mystified doctors and religious healers alike. Jesus-Christ Ne Deçoit Pas was released in 1991 and sold around 3000 cassettes in the Ivory Coast before the master tapes were lost. Now, the great Awesome Tapes From Africa, which also brought the aforementioned Our Garden Needs Its Flowers to a whole new generation of listeners across the world, has resurrected Sah Bi’s document of salvation for its first ever digital release.
Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard : May 2025 : Aquarium Drunkard
This month, Tyler and Chad are joining forces to pay tribute to Bob Dylan, in honor of the man's birthday coming up on May 24. Tyler is zoning in on Dylan's miracle year of 1965, playing some rarities, oddities and live performances, while Chad is taking a wider view with an hour's worth of demos, outtakes, live cuts and album tracks from 1970-1993. Sunday, 4-6pm PT.
Nicole McCabe : A Song to Sing : Aquarium Drunkard
On A Song to Sing, Nicole McCabe’s fourth album as a bandleader and first for Colorfield Records, the LA-based saxophonist guides us into a world of warped, futurist jazz, looping improvised sounds on synthesizer, piano, percussion, and clarinet into the principal grooves of her horn. With some additional flourishes from pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Logan Kane, and drummer Justin Brown, the music exudes a moody and noirish nocturnal energy, complicated by a cacophony of layered and processed noise that takes the moonlit jazz club vibe into a stranger and more unknowable terrain.
Joe Harvey-Whyte & Bobby Lee : Last Ride : Aquarium Drunkard
Last Ride journeys out toward that stoned and immaculate perimeter where reality blurs between the future and now, where truth and fantasy meld and the desert expanse of the mind begins to resemble the great celestial horizon. It’s here we find pedal steel maestro Joe Harvey-Whyte and psych-country vibe lord Bobby Lee, scouring these far reaches for the purest elements of their cosmic choogle—two sonic cartographers conjuring a landscape straight outta the technicolor acid western playing perpetually on the back of your eyelids, where nothing is as it seems, and everything’s right where it needs to be.
Bennie Maupin : The Jewel In The Lotus : Aquarium Drunkard
Out of print on vinyl since 1977, Bennie Maupin’s solo debut, The Jewel in the Lotus, makes its welcome return to the format this month via ECM’s Luminessence reissue series. A counterpoint to the playful funk of Hancock’s Headhunters, The Jewel in the Lotus swings the pendulum well beyond Mwansishi’s heady explorations into more earthy, deeply spiritual turf. A true headphone journey and an aural balm for a world that’s spinning a bit too fast.
Scott Hirsch : Hey Perdido : Aquarium Drunkard
Via Ojai, CA, Scott Hirsch returns this spring via his latest full-length, Lost Padres, officially out today on Echo Magic. Hirsch describes the record as a roadmap, “a sonic strategy to get back home. A touchstone test to hold what you value as truth to see if it’s real or fool’s gold.”
Keith Hudson : Pick A Dub : Aquarium Drunkard
2024 heralded the 50th anniversary of this seminal dub record – one of the first of its kind – and it's no exaggeration to say this release from Jamaican producer Keith Hudson remains one of the genre's high-water marks. Recorded in a nascent scene, Pick A Dub's edges are rough, but the riddims are pure and shot straight from the heart boasting a simplicity and honesty that is nothing short of enchanting.
Punch-Drunk Sounds : The Imagined Music of Jeremy Blake : Aquarium Drunkard
In his delightful, dizzying, and surrealist take on the romantic comedy—2002’s Punch-Drunk Love—the writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson infuses a number of elements that both support and subvert the audience’s expectations around the love story at the center of the film. These include the repeated and persistent use of the color blue and the idiosyncratic score by Jon Brion. Another such component is a series of so-called “time-based paintings” by visual and digital artist Jeremy Blake, which are deployed as interstitial moments throughout the film as well as a backdrop for the closing credits.
Smith Perkins Smith : S/T (1972) : Aquarium Drunkard
Via their 1972 self-titled debut, Smith Perkins Smith’s “Say No More” was highlighted by Board Of Canada’s Marcus Eoin as part of his Campfire Mixtape. Spanning John Denver to Joni MItchell, the 10 selections that constitute Eoin’s imaginary cassette were intended to serve as a rough guide of aesthetic touchstones that informed the vibe of their forthcoming record. As a song cycle it works, with the inclusion of the Perkins tune being both the highlight and most enigmatic of the bunch...
Jeffery Broussard & The Nighttime Syndicate : Bayou Moonlight : Aquarium Drunkard
Like a lot of traditional art forms, zydeco is regularly reinterpreted by oncoming generations of hot shot musicians. Younger artists blend the form with hip hop, jazz, rock and pop, using electric instruments and booming amps. But Jeffrey Broussard likes his zydeco unadulterated. You can equally imagine these tunes blasting out of a remote juke joint in Louisiana’s swampy hinterlands or drifting out onto the cobblestones in the French Quarter.
Billy Strayhorn : The Peaceful Side (1963) : Aquarium Drunkard
Dim the lights. Chill the glasses. Loosen your tie; kick off your heels. For the latest installment of our "Midnite Jazz" column, we look at Billy Strayhorn's The Peaceful Side (1963), a ghostly offering of sparse jazz standards that showcase Strayhorn not as Duke Ellington's right-hand man, but as a formidable solo artist in his own right.
Grails : The Sounds Behind Miracle Music : Aquarium Drunkard
Grails has never been afraid of big moments—David Axelrod’s bold, dramatic arrangements come to mind. However, Miracle Music isn’t all crescendo and climax. There’s a subtlety and sensitivity at work here, an attention to detail that pays off enormously. And though the group leans towards the darker side of things, there’s a lot of joy to be found as well, musicians doing exactly what they want to do and generously sharing the goods with the rest of us. And speaking of sharing, Grails’ Emil Amos, Alex Hall and Ilyas Ahmed have put together a useful listening guide of crate digs that inspired and informed their latest masterpiece.
Janine : Muda : Aquarium Drunkard
Just like the early MPB of Marília Medalha, Nara Leão, and Elis Regina, Janine Price's music comes from the theater tradition, where she built her musical persona and developed warping intonation techniques. Just like their early MPB too, her music is centered on the tenor vocal range, which prepares grand orchestrations to a sequence of unexpected soft landings.
Wadada Leo Smith & Vijay Iyer : The Aquarium Drunkard Interview : Aquarium Drunkard
Composers Wadada Leo Smith and Vijay Iyer are inveterate collaborators. Compile their past work together and you're staring down a list that includes Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette, Pauline Oliveros, DJ Spooky, John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, and more. But something singular and deeply special happens when they work one on one, as they do on the recently released Defiant Life. "We just create," Smith says. "You could call it 'composition' or 'spontaneous composition' or 'spontaneous improvisation' or some kind of stuff like that. But the truth is, all the serious documents about humans on this planet refer to creation."
Florry : Sounds Like : Aquarium Drunkard
Florry, from Philly and now headquartered in Burlington, VT, makes a tipsy, slurry, utterly fetching variety of country rock, the notes wobbling all over the place but fizzing with unstoppable electric energy. The band spins out songs like a country joyride, rattling, banging, jolting hard on the ruts, but full of unfussed beauty. Sounds like a good time? Sounds like Florry.
Cash Langdon : Dogs : Aquarium Drunkard
With a tight full band setup reminiscent of his own version of Crazy Horse, the sophomore effort from Alabama-based musician Cash Langdon brings a rugged, heavy country rock feel. Langdon's muse of forthright melodic songcraft however still delivers the melodic goods, capturing a gritty power pop sensibility. Dogs is an increasingly impressive work, from the uniquely southern identity in the lyrics to electric, shambling song frameworks that hit exactly as hard as intended.
Transmissions : Dean Wareham : Aquarium Drunkard
Do you ever connect with an old friend and find that, despite however many years it's been, you pick up right where you left off, as if no time has passed at all? That’s sort of what happened between today’s guest, Dean Wareham and producer Kramer in the making of Dean’s new album, That’s the Price of Loving Me. You know Dean from his work with Luna and Dean and Britta, his duo with his wife Britta Phillips, but when Kramer and Dean last teamed up, it was for the recording of Dean’s old band Galaxie 500’s final album, 1990’s This Is Our Music. This week on Transmissions, Dean joins us for a spirited discussion about the new album, movie matinees, guitars, his work with director Noah Baumbach, the influence of Lou Reed—and Dean’s experiences meeting him—and what happens when you, what happens when you embrace the magic of the unintended.
The Vernon Spring : Under a Familiar Sky : Aquarium Drunkard
Sam Beste of the Vernon Spring emerged first as Amy Winehouse’s favorite piano player, later taking part in the fusion-jazzy Hejira and assisting in various behind-the-scenes capacities for Matthew Herbert, Floating Points and other jazz-electronic ensembles. Here, in his solo project, all these elements of his past as a musician flit through the mix. Lyrical runs of trebly piano touch on jazz. Note-shifting, syllable stretching vocal phrases send a tendril out towards soul. The pulse of electronics lends these fragile organic compositions a hint of EDM. Field recordings and spoken word intervals expand the palette to incorporate not just music but poetry and the rhythms of daily life.