Aquarium Drunkard https://aquariumdrunkard.com Los Angeles Based Music Journal Mon, 26 Oct 2026 16:09:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Willis Alan Ramsey :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/26/willis-alan-ramsey-the-aquarium-drunkard-interview/ Mon, 26 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126398 More than 50 years after releasing one of the great cult albums of the early ’70s, Willis Alan Ramsey remains an enigma: a singular songwriter whose long-awaited second record has yet to materialize. But as a recent live appearance and a first-ever vinyl reissue of his self-titled debut attest, Ramsey is very much still here — and already thinking beyond the follow-up he once abandoned. We caught up with the Texas songwriter to talk about the making of a classic, the decades since, and the music still to come.

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]]> Surprise Chef :: Frogs In A Pond https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/26/surprise-chef-frogs-in-a-pond/ Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:26:48 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126493 Like the best giallo scores, Surprise Chef's Frogs In A Pond finds beauty in the uneasy marriage of the sinister and the seductive. Its analog warmth and locked-in grooves evoke a bygone era without becoming trapped in it, blurring the line between recordings from 2026 and 1976. The eerie mood of the compositions, mixed with the 8-track recording, creates an auditory twilight zone that’s both nostalgic and immediate.

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]]> Valerie and Her Week of Wonders :: (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/26/valerie-and-her-week-of-wonders-original-motion-picture-soundtrack/ Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126104 This Halloween when the usual horror soundtrack fare begins to feel a little too familiar, there is Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. Released in 1970, Jaromil Jireš’s surreal Czech fairy tale is a bizarre, beautiful collision of vampires, witchcraft, religious repression, erotic awakening and dream logic. Paired with Luboš Fišer’s score, the whole thing feels like an intermittent phantasmagoria.

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]]> Videodrome :: Psycho II (1983) https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/24/videodrome-psycho-ii-1983/ Sat, 24 Oct 2026 13:45:36 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126374 About midway through Psycho II (1983), you realize you’re not watching a horror sequel, but a carefully constructed character study. Psycho II isn’t really interested in being a sequel or a horror film; it’s interested in the rehabilitation of Norman Bates, and how those in Bates’ orbit react to that. We may have entered the film expecting a boogeyman, but instead we’re watching a fatally flawed hero, and…we’re rooting for him? Yes, we’re actually rooting for Norman Bates.

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]]> A La Altura: Visionary Mexican Music 1977-1999 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/23/a-la-altura-visionary-mexican-music-1977-1999/ Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126449 Experimental music history is still, in large part, a Euro-American project. Rare are the efforts that highlight Latin American pioneers like Beatriz Ferreyra or Jocy de Oliveira, and rarer still are histories of electronic scenes with a pop, new age edge. A La Altura: Visionary Mexican Music 1977-1999 excavates the ambient underground of Mexico City, tracing a vibrant, largely overlooked circuit of independent cassette culture, dubbed tapes, and street stalls. Compiled by Carlos Icaza and Mark McNeill after a decade of research into the city’s cassette history, it offers a long-overdue portrait of Mexico’s experimental music underground.

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]]> Chris Lyons :: New Love for the Old Flame https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/22/chris-lyons-new-love-for-the-old-flame/ Thu, 22 Oct 2026 17:07:16 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126304 After a pair of excellent albums fronting his New Orleans quartet Silver Synthetic, last year's Painters Street saw musician and vocalist Chris Lyons venturing into promising solo pathways. On sophomore record New Love for the Old Flame, Lyons presents a dazzling collection hovering like the forlorn days of the golden AM dial. The comfort of a lazy afternoon personified in sound.

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]]> Jimmy Webb :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/22/jimmy-webb-the-aquarium-drunkard-interview/ Thu, 22 Oct 2026 13:30:00 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126411 Jimmy Webb has written some of the great songs in the modern American songbook. After turning 80 in August, he's releasing Yours For The Taking: The Found Songs of Jimmy Webb, via the revived Sun Records. Featuring guests like Michael McDonald, Graham Nash, and Amy Grant, the new album features both new recordings of long lost songs and original demos. With songs that stretch back across the decades, it's a collection that showcases Webb's mastery. He joins us to discuss the magic of a song demo, his upbringing in the church, and his lifelong love of science fiction.

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]]> The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PDT, Channel 35) https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/21/the-aquarium-drunkard-show-sirius-xmu-7pm-pdt-channel-35-188/ Thu, 22 Oct 2026 01:00:00 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126433 Broadcasting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.

34.1090° N, 118.2334° W

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]]> Ghost Dubs :: Oblique https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/21/ghost-dubs-oblique/ Wed, 21 Oct 2026 18:00:37 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126276 On his second album as Ghost Dubs, German producer Michae Fiedler pares his beats and grooves further back, reducing his already minimal palette to the stark rhythmic and textural fundamentals. But the tracks on Oblique resist the remoteness of some ambient dub — they might be skeletal, but they’re not bare-bones.

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]]> Transmissions :: Joe Casey of Protomartyr (2026) https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/21/transmissions-joe-casey-of-protomartyr-2026/ Wed, 21 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126413 This week on Transmissions, we're speaking with return guest Joe Casey of Protomartyr. The band's new album, Hotel Usona is a timely meditation on our empire in decline but also a document of defiance and even a kind of hope. Check in, tune out.

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]]> Fela Kuti & Africa ’70 :: Live in Berlin (Berliner Jazztage, 1978) https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/19/fela-kuti-africa-70-live-in-berlin-berliner-jazztage-1978/ Mon, 19 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126247 No retreat. No surrender. Filmed at the Berliner Jazztage on November 4, 1978, with Tony Allen still at the kit, this 87-minute document captures Fela Kuti and Africa ’70 at the end of their Herculean run. Unearthed decades later, the tapes capture the collective’s internal chemistry intact at the very moment its future was set to fracture.

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]]> Introducing Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard: Longform Listening. Worldwide. 24/7. https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/18/introducing-radio-free-aquarium-drunkard-longform-listening-worldwide-24-7/ Mon, 19 Oct 2026 03:15:50 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126336 A Continuous Broadcast from Aquarium Drunkard.

Hand-curated. No playlists. Nothing to scroll. Nothing random. Everything intentional.

Transmitting from the hills of Northeast Los Angeles, Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard is a free, always-on radio station. Press play and you're tuned in to what's on the air right now, alongside everyone else. The broadcast continues and tracks advance whether or not you're listening.

The app is free, but requires an active Apple Music subscription.

James Barnes is the architect. Justin Gage is the selector.

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]]> Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Soundtrack, Angelo Badalamenti) https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/15/twin-peaks-fire-walk-with-me-soundtrack-angelo-badalamenti/ Thu, 15 Oct 2026 13:30:00 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126180 Mid-October approaches, and the owls are not what they seem. The best records belong to a particular hour, season, or state of mind. The soundtrack to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me seems to exist just beyond all three, somewhere between the last light and whatever waits after dark.

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]]> Booker Stardrum :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/15/booker-stardrum-the-aquarium-drunkard-interview/ Thu, 15 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126047 Jazz grip. Booker Stardrum’s work spans solo recordings, electronic experiments, and collective improvisation. In 2026, he’s released his fourth solo album, Close-up On The Outside, alongside new records with Play Time, OOPS!, Silk Fence, and SML. We spoke with Stardrum about his compositional process and the challenges and possibilities of working across so many different musical settings.

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]]> RFAD :: October 2026 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/10/15/radio-free-aquarium-drunkard-october-2026/ Thu, 15 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0000 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/?p=126242 Freeform transmissions from Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard on dublab. Airing every third Sunday of the month, RFAD on dublab features the pairing of Tyler Wilcox’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb and Chad DePasquale’s New Happy Gathering. This month, Tyler kicks things off with a grab-bag of folk jazz and dream pop; Chad follows it up with an hour of Senegalese folk, Malian funk, Malaysian jazz, Filipino psych & more. Sunday, 4-6pm PT.

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