PODCAST

Transmissions

Aquarium Drunkard

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

music music commentary

All Episodes

79:13

Transmissions :: Lucy Sante

Transmissions ·

2025/03/12

This week on Transmissions, we welcome the phenomenal writer Lucy Sante to the show to discuss her latest book, I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition. Poetic, slyly funny, and exceptionally moving, the book joins her other classics, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York and Maybe the People Would Be the Times, as a piece of art that straddles the line between memoir, arts criticism, and music writing. We discuss those works, as well as Sante's recently published Six Sermons for Bob

64:32

Transmissions :: Steve Lillywhite

Transmissions ·

2025/03/05

Welcome back to Transmissions with Jason Woodbury. This week, Steve Lillywhite, a producer who's had as pivotal a role in shaping your host's musical taste as anyone. In this conversation, Lillywhite opens up about working with artists like Dave Matthews Band, U2, Phish, XTC, The La's, Marshall Crenshaw, The Killers, and more. From The Joshua Tree to Billy Breathes, from Before These Crowded Streets to Field Day, Lillywhite speaks about it all, the influence of dub, his production approach, and

66:20

Transmissions :: Jazz Is Dead (Ali Shaheed Muhammad &...

Transmissions ·

2025/02/26

This week on Transmissions: Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, the duo behind the label and concert series Jazz Is Dead.Founded in 2017, Jazz Is Dead began releasing new work by jazz artists frequently sampled in rap and hip-hop in 2020, including releases from legendary players like Roy Ayers, Azymuth, Gary Bartz, Lonnie Liston Smith, Tony Allen, and more. On January 31st, the duo released JID022, featuring new music from 88-year-old Ghanian highlife and afrobeat master Ebo Taylor, and on

84:11

Transmissions :: Bonnie "Prince" Billy

Transmissions ·

2025/02/19

Welcome back to Transmissions from Aquarium Drunkard. We're kicking off our 10th season with host Jason Woodbury in conversation with Will Oldham, the man behind Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who appeared on the very first Transmissions interview back in 2016. This episode flips a gentle and honest bird to The Big Online Machine:"Some people I think are fully integrated and are just ready to, if not officially upload their souls to the Metaverse, more or less do that. And those are people with whom we

67:29

Transmissions :: Phosphorescent

Transmissions ·

2024/11/20

We’ve reached the end of the road for this season—season 9 concludes with this episode, a conversation with Matthew Houck, the leader of the avant-country band Phosphorescent. In April, Phosphorescent released Revelator, the band’s ninth album. It’s their debut for Verve Records, after a string of well-received albums on Dead Oceans. Joined by collaborators like Jim White of the Dirty Three—who you heard earlier this season—Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs, and his wife and songwriting partner Jo

69:05

Transmissions :: Pat Irwin (Suss, The B52s)

Transmissions ·

2024/11/13

Welcome to the penultimate episode of our ninth season, featuring Pat Irwin of Suss. You may remember him from last year’s Suss talk, with his bandmates Jonathan Gregg and Bob Holmes, but he’s back for a solo talk this time, which allowed us to dig into his wild life in music, from his time in the the late ‘70s New York No Wave scene with The Raybeats and 8-Eyed Spy, to his work with Southern freak icons The B-52s, and his long career crafting music for TV and animation, including shows like Rocko’s

61:21

Transmissions :: Real Estate

Transmissions ·

2024/11/06

Welcome back to Transmissions, we’re so glad to have you tuned into this show. This week, a talk taped earlier this summer with Martin Courtney of Real Estate. Real Estate has been releasing great albums since the late 2000s. This year, they released their sixth LP, called Daniel. Produced in Nashville by Daniel Tashian, who produced Kacy Musgraves’ breakthrough Golden Hour, it’s a mellow, refined sound—deeply rooted in acoustic ‘90s rock textures and dappled with pedal steel. It’s a record about

115:21

Transmissions :: Rosali and David Nance

Transmissions ·

2024/10/30

This week on the show, a double-header. First, Rosali Middleman, and then, her bandmate, collaborator, and the leader of Mowed Sound, David Nance. Together, they both play on Rosali’s fantastic 2024 album, Bite Down. Reviewing it for Aquarium Drunkard, Brent Sirota writes, “A great summer album needs hooks and choruses, big barroom rave-ups and bleary confessions of both love and doubt. Bite Down, with its weathered Americana, has all of this in spades. But more than that, a summer record must feel

77:23

Transmissions :: Mitch Horowitz (2024)

Transmissions ·

2024/10/23

Welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. This week on the show, one of our favorite return guests: Mitch Horowitz. As scholar and historian of the occult, he's established himself as one of the most literate voices in the New Age field. On previous episodes, Horowitz has discussed his books, like Uncertain Places and Daydream Believer—but he’s finally taking the plunge with a podcast of his own. It’s called Extraordinary Evidence | ESP Is Real, a “limited series on the history, struggles,

69:07

Transmissions :: Frosty and Hermanos Gutiérrez

Transmissions ·

2024/10/16

Welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions, this week on the show, we're joined by three guests—though, not all at once. In the first half of the show: Mark “Frosty” McNeill of dublab and the LA Phil to discuss a new compilation he helped produce, Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996; in the second-half of the show, Estevan and Alejandro Gutierrez, better known as Hermanos Gutiérrez just us to discuss their latest album of spacey guitar instrumentals, Sonido Cosmico

63:50

Transmissions :: Jill Fraser

Transmissions ·

2024/10/09

Welcome back to Transmissions—far out conversations for far out times. This week, we're joined by synthesist Jill Fraser. She's lived a remarkable life in music: mentored by Morton Subotnick, she went on work in film and television, with projects like 1974's sci-fi fantasy Zardoz and Paul Schrader's 1979 film Hardcore to her name, in addition to a litany of commercials featuring her inventive sound design. In the '80s, she found herself on the outskirts of LA's thriving punk scene, and now, she's

63:09

Transmissions :: Matt Sweeney

Transmissions ·

2024/10/02

This week on the show, we're pleased to present a conversation with Matt Sweeney. He’s lived a truly dazzling life in music. After coming up playing with the great band Chavez, he contributed to masterworks of indie rock—including records by Cat Power and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, with whom he crafted the monumental 2005 classic Superwolf, a classic in the Aquarium Drunkard canon. He's also worked as an in-demand session player, working on recordings for the likes of Cat Stevens, Johnny Cash, Neil

58:51

Transmissions :: Jake Xerxes Fussell

Transmissions ·

2024/09/25

If you’ve been listening to Transmissions for a while, you've noticed how often host Jason P. Woodbury brings up “time” when talking about music. And while he's certainly apt to talk about music in spiritual or "out there" terms, songs are in some ways literal time machines: they can take you back to your own past or in the case of traditional music, preserve some essential “nowness” of the human experience. Songsmith Jake Xerxes Fussell grew up understanding this intimately. As the son of

75:57

Transmissions :: Joe Boyd

Transmissions ·

2024/09/18

This week on Transmissions, we're sitting down with a genuine legend: Joe Boyd, author of And The Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music, out September 24 from ZE Books. On the front cover of the book Brian Eno—a venerated saint in the Aquarium Drunkard canon—declares: “I doubt I’ll ever read a better account of the history and sociology of popular music than this one.” Joe Boyd’s career is the stuff of myth. As a producer, he’s worked with a murder’s row of collaborators,

64:08

Transmissions :: Amelia Courthouse

Transmissions ·

2024/09/11

This week on Transmissions, the return of Leah Toth, aka Amelia Courthouse. She was last here on the podcast in its earlier, more feral incarnation—and by feral we mean "updated with elss regularity"—but back in 2018 she reviewed Shinya Fukumori Trio’s incredible ECM release For 2 Akis. We've wanted to have Leah back on ever since, and this now we've got a great excuse to do so: the release of her incredible new album under the Amelia Courthouse name, broken things. Blending Protestant solemnity

94:30

Transmissions :: Six Organs of Admittance (2024)

Transmissions ·

2024/09/04

From early mystic folk inclinations to more fried and psychedelic work, Ben Chasny's Six Organs of Admittance project has never settled into an easy, definable zone. But 2024 sees the Six Organs sonic universe expanding kaleidoscopically, even by Chasny's prodigious standards.First was Time Is Glass, an album that documented his return to Humboldt County; then Jinxed By Being, a collaboration with ambient dub master Shackleton, and on September 27th, Companion Rises (Twig Harper Remix), which

70:21

Transmissions :: Rich Ruth

Transmissions ·

2024/08/28

Welcome back to Transmissions, our weekly conversational offering. On today's show? Nashville’s own Rich Ruth. Opening his review of Ruth’s latest, the Third Man Records LP Water Still Flows, Aquarium Drunkard’s Brent Sirota states: “We don’t even have a name for what has been going on in instrumental music lately. There’s plainly some kind of new fusion afoot…[but] it doesn’t really sound like old-school fusion. There’s electrified jazz there, to be sure, but now it sits alongside krautrock,

67:07

Transmissions :: Starflyer 59

Transmissions ·

2024/08/21

This week, we have an exceedingly rare interview with Jason Martin, of California dream pop band Starflyer 59. Fermented in the nascent Riverside dream pop underground alongside his brother Ronnie Martin of Joy Electric in the early '90s, Martin's band SF59 released its debut album, Silver, 30 years ago in 1994 on the fledgling Tooth & Nail label. His latest, Lust for Gold, finds him winking knowingly at the title of his 1995 album Gold, a record routinely cited as one of the best shoegaze albums of

66:21

Transmissions :: Yasmin Williams

Transmissions ·

2024/08/14

This week on Transmissions, return guest Yasmin Williams. On October 4th, she releases Acadia via Nonesuch Records. It's her long awaited follow up to 2021's Urban Driftwood, and like that record, it's beautiful—a showcase for a one-of-a-kind artist. And while the focus remains Williams' fluid and lyrical guitarwork, she's joined by a roster of ringers to help fill out the corners: Aoife O'Donovan, Dom Flemons, Kaki King, William Tyler, and Darklingside and Rich Ruth, whose vocal and synthesizer

50:28

Transmissions :: La Lom

Transmissions ·

2024/08/07

Sometimes, background music moves to the foreground. That’s the case with today’s guests, guitarist Zac Sokolow, bassist Jake Faulkner, and drummer Nicholas Baker. Together, they form LA LOM, short for the Los Angeles League of Musicians. In 2019, they were hired to bring suitably vibey music to the lobby of the historic Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. Employing a rotating cast of guest players, they filled the air with twangy cumbias, boleros, chicha, and reverberating Bakersfield-style

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