PODCAST

Transmissions

Aquarium Drunkard

Weekly interviews with musicians, artists, authors, and filmmakers presented by Aquarium Drunkard.

music music commentary

All Episodes

67:30

Sunburned Hand of the Man Episode 6: Heavy Rescue

Transmissions ·

2023/09/18

We open with our focus on the role that music has played in the band members’ individual lives and how a shared love of music brought them all together. This morphs into a consideration of the band’s many artistic influences, with a close look at the impact of the Wu-Tang Clan on Sunburned. We hear about the complicated and often difficult backgrounds of many of the Sunburned musicians and how jamming with the band can often serve as a type of group therapy. This is the Quietus interview where Rob

56:35

Transmissions :: Floating Points

Transmissions ·

2023/09/13

This week on the show, we’re joined by Sam Shepherd, AKA Floating Points. His discography is full of beautiful and strange electronic music—bubbling Buchalas, skittering beats, washes of synthesized sound, and even moody, spacious post-rock. But underneath it all, his love of jazz is clear. In 2021, he teamed with an actual jazz legend: the late Pharoah Sanders, as well as the London Symphony Orchestra for Promises, a single 46-minute composition broken into nine movements. Though the artists were

68:39

Sunburned Hand of the Man Episode 5: Loft at Sea

Transmissions ·

2023/09/11

We hear about the personal impact of the band’s non-stop touring and the eventual burnout that ground things to a halt. Moloney and Thomas then describe how this was followed by several “wilderness years” where the band was just there but they weren’t really doing anything with it. Overlapping with this period there was a migration from Boston out to western Massachusetts. This brings us up to the modern era and ends the chronological review of the band’s history. In the second half of this episode,

56:48

Tranmissions :: Emil Amos (Drifter's Sympathy)

Transmissions ·

2023/09/06

Welcome back, thanks for being here with us. Emil Amos of the Drifter's Sympathy podcast is with us today on Transmissions. Perhaps you know his work with OM, Grails, Holy Sons, or the records he releases under his own name, like Zone Black, his latest record of library style sounds, synthy 80s soundtracks, hip-hop beats, and ambient music. It evokes a mythic ‘70s—an area we linger in this conversation. You might also know Emil from his many appearances on The Duncan Trussell Family Hour, a podcast

66:00

Sunburned Hand of the Man Episode 4: Tent City Roller

Transmissions ·

2023/09/04

At this point in our story, Sunburned Hand of the Man morphs into a many-headed hydra with varying manifestations in the loft and on each tour. To get through this vague period of 5-8 years, we focus on the band’s tour stories. We learn how a years-long period of heavy touring was kicked off with a family-band excursion to play a wedding in Alaska. After a conjunction of high-profile press coverage, Sunburned suddenly found themselves in high demand on the international festival circuit. So we focus

77:41

Transmissions :: Will Sheff (Okkervil River)

Transmissions ·

2023/08/30

Welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions, so glad to have you here once again. Our guest this week is Will Sheff, known for his solo work and years with the indie rock band Okkervil River. In this conversation, Sheff and host Jason P. Woodbury cover a wide stretch, examining how the indie rock landscape has changed and evolved over decades, exploring the spiritual core at the heart of his music, and hearing stories about his interactions with luminaries like Roky Erickson and Jason

55:46

Sunburned Hand of the Man Episode 3: Leaving the Nest

Transmissions ·

2023/08/28

We learn that, after jamming namelessly for a year and a half, the band finally started using the Sunburned moniker. Then we tune in to learn about their earliest excursions playing outside the Charlestown loft, including their first show as Sunburned as part of an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. We hear how the interplay between these new locations and contexts provoked new modes of performance and artistic connections. They describe how an invitation to join a tour opening

80:26

Transmissions :: Laura Snapes

Transmissions ·

2023/08/23

Today's guest is writer Laura Snapes. Her work has been published by the BBC, Pitchfork, and NME, and she's the deputy music editor of The Guardian. We’ve been aiming to have her for Transmissions for some time now, and now we're so glad we’ve got this episode to share with you listeners, covering the psycho-geology of songs, the climate, varied definitions of the term “Americana,” and her recent listening: Julie Byrne, Be Your Own Pet, Róisín Murphy, and Jesse Lanza. Plus, the occult roots of Aphex

58:26

Sunburned Hand of the Man Episode 2: Loveletter to...

Transmissions ·

2023/08/21

We rewind way back to before the band started and hear how some of the founding members first met one another. We learn how Sunburned’s precursor band – Shit Spangled Banner – formed, released a tape, and broke up. Thurston Moore provides narrative exposition about the wider music scene that partially informed Sunburned’s formation. We get a third-eye tour of the band’s incubator – an illegal loft space in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston. Finally, we hear about several early band members and

63:46

Transmissions :: Darren Jessee

Transmissions ·

2023/08/16

Our guest this week is Darren Jessee, a singer/songwriter and drummer. In the '90s, he played drums in Ben Folds Five, and he’s worked with a number of previous Transmissions guests, including Sharon Van Etten and Hiss Golden Messenger, as well as others like The War on Drugs, Josh Rouse, and Chris Stamey. In 2004, he founded a band called Hotel Lights, and in 2018, he began releasing music under his own name. His latest is called Central Bridge, released earlier this year. On this episode of

58:33

Sunburned Hand of the Man Episode 1: Headdress

Transmissions ·

2023/08/14

We hear about the origins and goals of the podcast – grappling with the complexities of Sunburned’s chaotic narrative. Music journalist Allison Hussey joins us to provide an outsider’s perspective of the band. Byron Coley describes Sunburned’s impact on the wider music scene. Then we focus on one song in an attempt to discern a bit of what Sunburned does when they jam. Finally, we turn to Sunburned’s iconic 2002 release, Headdress, and that album’s recent 20th anniversary reissue. Here’s an image

71:32

Transmissions :: Lincoln Barr

Transmissions ·

2023/08/09

Back in 2022, songwriter Lincoln Barr got in touch, writing a personal note in which he expressed an appreciation for what we do here at Aquarium Drunkard. "Listening to the topics that come up in your conversations, I can't help but recognize a kindred spirit out there in the desert.” Since then, Barr and Transmissions host Jason P. Woodbury have gone back and forth via email, discussing spirituality, art, poetry, Ireland, Sinéad O'Connor, NRBQ, psychedelia, personal work, and much more. And now,

3:00

No Way Out: An Oral History of Sunburned Hand of the Man

Transmissions ·

2023/08/07

Sunburned Hand of the Man is a long-running, free-form band from Massachusetts. They record everything, and their discography has over 200 entries. Membership is fluid, at times determined simply by whoever joins in the jam. One time they started to design a deck of cards where each card had a band member… but there were so many people they would have ended up with a full hand of jokers. There are no rules other than the unspoken rule that nobody tells anyone else what to do. Despite this swirling

67:10

Transmissions :: Hataałii

Transmissions ·

2023/08/02

Hataaliinez Wheeler grew up in Window Rock, Arizona, the capital of the Navajo Nation. And though he’s just recently released his Dangerbird Records debut, Singing Into Darkness, he’s spent the last few years creating as much art as he can—recording music, making lo-fi videos, and writing poetry. Sunbaked and sly, the new album is full of strange grooves and quixotic lyrics, and a sound that borrows from country, surf, indie rock, and shoegaze. We first heard Hataałii through Michael Klausman, who

100:57

Transmissions :: Andy Zax on Mort Garson's Journey to...

Transmissions ·

2023/07/26

Welcome back to another episode of Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions, so glad to have you with us. A major inspiration for us in the podcast zone is media theorist Douglas Rushkoff, host of the Team Human podcast. As our digital age gets stranger, more fractured, and harder to parse, we find his humanist, consciousness-centered approach very helpful. One of the things he’s known for saying is “Look for the others”—the others who grok your worldview, whose enthusiasms and obsessions mirror your own

67:20

Transmissions :: Gia Margaret

Transmissions ·

2023/07/19

It's the thick of the summer, which means your Transmissions correspondents are spending as much time in cool dark spaces as possible. One record that particularly suits the mood in our summer bunker hideaway is Gia Margaret's Romantic Piano. Though Margaret's 2018 debut, There’s Always Glimmer, was the striking work of a singer/songwriter, when medical issues put a strain on her voice, she turned to instrumental music, first with her ambient leaning self-titled 2020 album, and now Romantic Piano, a

62:04

Transmissions :: Marc Ribot

Transmissions ·

2023/07/12

In “Lies and Distortion,” the opening essay of his book Unstrung: Rants And Stories Of a Noise Guitarist, Marc Ribot writes: “We seem to love broken voices in general: vocal cords eroded by whiskey and screaming, the junked-out weakness of certain horn players, distortion which signifies surpassing the capabilities of a tube or a speaker—voices that damage, but (at least in performance) don’t actually die…Was this always true? I don’t know.” In a way, that speaks to Ribot’s own playing, on his own

53:51

Transmissions :: Jared Swilley (Black Lips)

Transmissions ·

2023/07/05

While Black Lips have matured and grown since forming in 1999, the Atlanta-based garage band haven’t "settled down." Case in point is Apocalypse Love, the group’s 10th album, released last year on Fire Records. Incorporating gospel and country influences, it’s as strange and exciting as the band’s early work, but it also showcases a new depth to the band. Today on Transmissions, Black Lip Jared Swilley joins us to discuss his pentecostal roots, his minister father coming out of the closet, the

100:43

Transmissions :: David John Morris (Red River Dialect)

Transmissions ·

2023/06/28

This week on the show, we’re joined by London-based singer/songwriter David John Morris. Perhaps you know him for his work with folk rock band Red River Dialect, but for this talk, we mostly speak about his latest two solo albums, 2021’s Monastic Love Songs and 2022’s Wyld Love Songs, on which, to quote Aquarium Drunkard's Tyler Wilcox, balances "sacred and profane concerns, finding moments of welcome humor amidst more spiritual matters." He joined us to discuss his time in a Buddhist monastery, how

78:28

Transmissions :: The Modern Folk

Transmissions ·

2023/06/21

Writing about The Modern Folk’s Modern Folk One in our AD 2022 Year in Review, we called it, “A blend of field recordings, astral zones, freak outs, leisurely jams, and rustique concrète from the ever-prolific Josh Moss.” That gives you a little sense of the kind of music Moss creates with his ultra-prolific recording project. Head over to his Bandcamp and you'll find dozens and dozens of releases. Moss is such an inspiring creator, completely beholden to doing his own thing explicitly, so

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