Aquarium Drunkard

1 week ago | aquariumdrunkard.com | Jason P. Woodbury

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.

1 week ago | aquariumdrunkard.com | Justin Gage

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 . . . Only the good shit.

1 week ago | aquariumdrunkard.com | Justin Gage

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 . . . Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons.

1 week ago | aquariumdrunkard.com | Jason P. Woodbury

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.

1 week ago | aquariumdrunkard.com | Jason P. Woodbury

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 . . .