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Transmissions

Aquarium Drunkard

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

music music commentary

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74:19

Transmissions :: Al Riggs

Transmissions ·

2021/04/21

As we've noted here before, Durham-based songwriter al Riggs keeps very busy. Their new album is called I Got a Big Electric Fan to Keep Me Cool While I Sleep. Though they bounce around genre-wise, this LP is rooted in country rock traditions and it features contributions from cosmic pedal steel guitarist Chuck Johnson, Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country, and others. Riggs joined us for a discursive chat, exploring their relationship with country music and, of course, Robert Altman's failed

71:46

Transmissions :: Angel Bat Dawid

Transmissions ·

2021/04/14

This week on the show, Chicago’s Angel Bat Dawid. A composer, clarinetist, poet, and vocalist, she’s one of the shining stars of the International Anthem label, where she’s issued some incredible records like Live, with her band Tha Brotherhood, as well as the Oracle and the Transition East single. She also plays with other groups, like Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble—she’s featured prominently on their incredible new album, NOW, which blends free jazz and hypnotic R&B. Angel joined us to

51:43

Transmissions :: Pino Palladino and Blake Mills

Transmissions ·

2021/04/07

Pino Palladino and Blake Mills are two of the most dynamic studio wizards in music and they join us this week on Transmissions to discuss Notes With Attachments, their Impulse! Records-released collaborative long-player. Backed by a set of LA studio heavyweights like saxophonist Sam Gendel, drummer Chris Dave, organist Larry Golding, and others. Known for their individual collaborations with artists like Bob Dylan, D'Angelo, The Who, Fiona Apple, and Brittany Howard, these two go completely

94:18

Transmissions :: Noah Lekas & Ethan Miller of Howlin’...

Transmissions ·

2021/03/31

This week on the show, we're joined by poet and music journalist Noah C. Lekas and Ethan Miller of Howlin' Rain and Comets on Fire. They've got a new collaboration featured on Sounds From the Shadow Factory, a 10" record from Blind Owl: a rock & roll adaptation of "Saturday Night Sage," the poem from Lekas' recent book of the same name. The two joined us for a discussion about spoken word, their paths in psychedelia, blue collar mysticism, and the current state of the counterculture. Heading deep

62:51

Transmissions :: Martin Courtney of Real Estate

Transmissions ·

2021/03/24

Our guest this week on Transmissions is Martin Courtney of Real Estate. On March 26th, the long-running New Jersey group releases its new EP, Half a Human, which embraces the jammier side of the band and continues the stylistic explorations of 2020's The Main Thing. We discussed record stores, adjusting to life without live music, Twin Peaks, and Courtney's 2015 solo album Many Moons—and its forthcoming follow up. We hope you enjoy this conversation. If you do, consider sharing it with a

64:13

Transmissions :: Shahzad Ismaily

Transmissions ·

2021/03/17

Description: Our guest this week on the show is Shahzad Ismaily, whose recorded with, well, he’s recorded with a lot of people, from Moses Sumney and Sam Amidon to Beth Orton, Martha Wainwright, Yoko Ono, Bonnie Prince Billy, Jolie Holland, and many, many more. With his buddies Ches Smith and Marc Ribot, he’s a member of the punk jazz outfit Ceramic Dog, and last year he released Visitations with Leo Abrahams on his own label, Figureight Records. We hope you enjoy this conversation. If you do,

62:16

Transmissions :: His Name is Alive

Transmissions ·

2021/03/10

This week on Transmissions: Detroit’s own Warren Defever of Third Man Records and the experimental pop group His Name is Alive. Since the mid-80s, HNIA has released over a hundred records, EPs, and projects on labels like 4AD, Rykodisc, Time STEREO, and Unsung Hunger. Recently Warren has been exploring way back in the archives, sharing some of the work that caught the ear of Ivo-Watts Russell, who eventually signed His Name Is Alive in the ‘90s. A new boxset collects it all, A Silver Thread: Home

65:28

Transmissions :: Amanda Petrusich

Transmissions ·

2021/03/03

Our guest this week is Amanda Petrusich, author of It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, the the Search for the Next American Music, and Do Not Sell at Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78 rpm Records. She's also a critic at the New Yorker. She joined us from her place in upstate New York to discuss balancing comfort listening and new sounds, Bob Dylan’s Christian era, Harry Smith, musical mysticism, and much more.

62:43

Transmissions :: Peter Guralnick

Transmissions ·

2021/02/24

Legendary music writer Peter Guralnick joins us this week on Transmissions. He's been writing about the blues, rock & roll, soul, and R&B since the late 1960s. His latest book is called Looking To Get Lost: Adventures in Music & Writing. It is a book about the creativity that fueled artists like Johnny Cash, Robert Johnson, Ray Charles, Dick Curless, and Howlin' Wolf, who Guralnick says viewed his music as an expression "not just of personal freedom but of personal difference." He joins us for

66:43

Transmissions :: Fletcher Tucker

Transmissions ·

2021/02/17

Northern California mysticism with Fletcher Tucker. His latest album of ritualistic folk music is called Unlit Trail. Like the previous, Cold Spring, it's a record that settles deep into the sacred nature of existence. It's an lp designed to welcome the listener "into a liminal state, beyond ordinary awareness," and into the unknown. Tucker joined us to discuss Star Trek, animism, family and the deep history of his instruments and home in Big Sur, California.

45:35

Transmissions :: Robyn Hitchcock/Howe Gelb of Giant...

Transmissions ·

2021/02/13

Hope you're enjoying the new season of Aquarium Drunkard's Transmissions. Here's a good one from the archives, a favorite of Timothy Showalter of Strand of Oaks a roundtable talk with three lifers: Howe Gelb, Robyn Hitchcock, and Steve Wynn. The three share similar paths through scenes and the industry, their paths are shared but divergent, and there’s a spiritual unity at work even in their differences. With his band Giant Sand, Howe Gelb pens strange, dusty songs about love and the desert. Both

61:23

Transmissions :: Yasmin Williams

Transmissions ·

2021/02/10

On her second lp, the newly released Urban Driftwood, Virginia-based guitarist Yasmin Williams creates expansive acoustic music. Playing guitar, kalimba, percussion, and kora, she pulls from disparate musical strands—including the smooth jazz she heard growing up—into music that feels spiritually connected to New Age music, Windham Hill guitar, and the work of contemporaries like Daniel Bachman (who calls her "a guitarist for a new century"), William Tyler, and Marisa Anderson, both whom she's

66:54

Transmissions :: The Weather Station

Transmissions ·

2021/02/03

Tamara Lindeman joins us this week on Transmissions for a conversation about Ignorance, her lush and sweeping new album as The Weather Station. Lindeman is the kind of songwriter who dares to write about big topics, like identity and global climate change, but the new album finds her exploring those concepts over deeply rhythmic jazz and pop-influenced compositions. It's out Friday, February 5 on Fat Possum Records. Lindeman joined us from her home in Ontario, to discuss the pandemic, the

66:27

Transmissions :: Margo Price

Transmissions ·

2021/01/27

This week we're happy to welcome Margo Price to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions for a talk about the music industry, her creative partnership with husband Jeremy Ivey, her online radio show, forays into the cannabis business, and her latest rock and seventies pop inspired lp, That's How Rumors Get Started. Bold and strident, it's a record that finds her blurring genres, like many of her country heroes, people like John Prine, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. Plus, she fills us in on some of the

79:01

Transmissions :: Nels Cline

Transmissions ·

2021/01/20

It’s 2021 and Aquarium Drunkard’s Transmissions podcast is back. Every Wednesday, your host Jason P. Woodbury sits down with a fascinating guest for a rolling conversation about art, process, and inspiration. To kick off our new season, we’re joined by Nels Cline. Known for his many varied solo projects, work in Wilco, and a long history of collaboration with artists like Yoko Ono, John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Medeski, Martin, and Wood, and many more. His latest work, out now via the legendary

59:06

Transmissions :: North Americans

Transmissions ·

2020/12/23

Our guest this week is Patrick McDermott of North Americans. His latest is called Roped In and its blissed out guitar-scapes find him teaming up with cosmic pedal steel master Barry Walker Jr, William Tyler, and Mary Lattimore. He reached us from his place in Los Angeles to discuss pleasant zones, video games, and some particularly good lunches. A quick note: this is the final episode of our season. We're going to take a break but don't you sweat it, we'll be back early in 2021 with more strange

66:30

Transmissions :: Psychic Temple

Transmissions ·

2020/12/16

This week, we're joined by returning guest Chris Schlarb of Psychic Temple and Big Ego, his studio in Long Beach. His latest is called Houses of the Holy, a four-sided double-album, featuring a different band on each side: Cherry Glazerr with garage pop, the Chicago Underground Trio with their jazz inflection, psych warriors the Dream Syndicate, and rapper and producer Xololanxinxo. Schlarb took some time out of his holiday season to speak with us about the creative ethos driving his work.

85:40

Transmissions :: Ken Layne of Desert Oracle

Transmissions ·

2020/12/09

This week on Transmissions, we welcome back a return guest: desert scribe and radio personality Ken Layne. He’s the editor of Desert Oracle, a pocket-sized field guide to the American Southwest and the host of Desert Oracle Radio, a weekly late-night broadcast out of Joshua Tree. With synthesist RedBlueBlackSilver in tow, Layne offers up tales of the paranormal, the odd, and the arcane. Layne illuminates these damned and or transcendent topics with good humor and dusty charm. This week, he

63:11

Transmissions :: Masma Dream World

Transmissions ·

2020/12/02

This week on Transmissions, we're joined by sound healer, reiki practitioner, and avant-garde composer Devi Mambouka, better known as Masma Dream World. Her latest LP is called Play At Night, out on Northern Spy Records. It’s a blend of subterranean bass, spooky backwards masked poetry, and shifting, nocturnal soundscapes designed to entrance, inviting you to examine your “preconceived relationship with darkness, guiding you to step into it—to play in it.” Mambouka took some time out of a

61:56

Transmissions :: Elisa Ambrogio of Magik Makers

Transmissions ·

2020/11/25

You’re tuned into Transmissions, where each week Aquarium Drunkard presents a strange conversation for these strange times. Today on the show we’re joined by Elisa Ambrogio of Magik Makers. The Markers’ new album 2020 is out now on Drag City. It’s a gloriously smeared burst of noise, raw riffs, and damaged country and folk songs. Ambrogio joined us to discuss the importance of good quarantine companion, living out west, and getting into music—really inhabiting it—before you are even sure what you

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