#46: Recreational Chemistry

How to Stream Your Music at Home / American Psychedelic Jam Rock Is BACK!

Welcome to the Ambient Audiophile, a place where we’ve never heard any Diana Krall records.

Exciting things are happening here at AA, people! Hello to all you new subscribers. Let me take a moment to remind you that paying subs are welcome to DM me anytime for stereo advice and light consultation. I want to keep all the content here free for all but those who dig deep deserve to get a lil somethin’ somethin’! But here’s some free advice for all: BLUETOOTH AIN’T IT.

Thanks to Music Direct, we have a proper streamer coming in to test out. Funnily enough, my last two chats with paying subscribers were about creating a good streaming/digital music setup in a home stereo.

This has been my weakest part of my home audio game as I’m simply running a USB out of my MacBook Air into my DAC and either using AirPlay with Apple Music or Tidal or manually loading FLACs into VLC, hitting play and hopping on the couch. Not an ideal setup and I know I’m losing sound somewhere. A couple years I ago I ran a trial version of Audirvāna (before they introduced a monthly subscription model) and I really liked it. It organized my local files well and sounded very good. I never bought the program as I’ve been paralyzed with indecsion about if I really need a streamer or if an old Mac Mini (or similar would do)

So in a few weeks, we’ll be closer to an answer on that front and I hope you follow along for the ride.

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This week’s episode of the Trailhead is archived and ready for your streaming pleasure.

New music is flowing nicely after a typical slow start to the new year. As mentioned last week, Oakland trio Aux Meadows has a great new full-length on Eiderdown Records forthcoming as do their neighbors Pacific Walker (on Bluesanct). This mighty consortium of pastoral psychedelic practitioners started the show off this week, opening a hole in the sky for pieces by numün, Wil Bolton, Sun Swept and Matt LaJoie to beam through. Nice.

Set two was dedicated to a mighty slab of primal Dead. My Grateful Dead listening has waned considerably the last couple of years but the inner fire is never completely smothered. During an early morning early session I had a strong random desire to hear a ‘Mountains of the Moon → Dark Star’. So, of course, I headed to the late winter of 1969 and revisited the great, possibly underrated show from the Dream Bowl in Vallejo, California on February 22, 1969. Officially released in a huge, insanely expensive box set, this show is thankfully beautifully archived on the LMA. The aforementioned moon/star is beautiful and the following ‘Cryptical > Other One > Cryptical’ is jaw-dropping.

Check out the show here and peep the playlist below.

The Trailhead 162 Playlist:

1. Aux Meadows - Clear a Path - Draw Near (Eiderdown Records, 2025) 00:00

2. Pacific Walker - Bustuarii Tears for di Inferni - Lost in the Valley of the Sun (Bluesanct, 2025) 03:10

3. numün - Flower - Opening (Centripetal Force, 2025) 08:55

4. Wil Bolton - Fir - South of the Lake (Quiet Details, 2025) 15:02

5. Sun Swept - Arcadia - Germinations (Aural Canyon, 2024) 23:20

6. Matt LaJoie - Bellflower Bounce - Music Inspired by Practical Pomology (Flower Room, 2024) 29:10

7. A2 - 2019.07.24_3 - 2019.07.24 (A2, 2024) 35:06

8. Grateful Dead - Mountains of the Moon -> Dark Star -> - 1969-02-22 Dream Bowl, Vallejo, CA (LMA) 1:05:45

9. Grateful Dead - That's It for the Other One -> Death Don’t Have No Mercy - 1969-02-22, Dream Bowl, Vallejo, CA (LMA) 1:33:25

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Not as full review, but I wanted to shoutout long-running psychedelic jam rock survivors moe. and their awesome new album Circle of Giants.

As mentioned before, I became a fan of these guys in the late 90s but left the farm for a good 20 years before returning in 2021 when jam bands were the only ones finding ways to play during the pandemic. In 2024 I had the good fortune of being able to see them play on a rooftop in lower Manhattan, on a mountain top in Wyoming and next to a lake in the Adirondacks. Each show was a great mix of their classic and newer material and featured an abundance of patient and telepathic jamming and interplay among the band’s six members.

Circle of Giants is the band’s first to feature newest member Nate Wilson (keys, vocals, flute) and it’s a truly psychedelic vibe in there. There’s Sabbath-y riffs, Traffic-like fusion, Santana-esque breakdowns and plenty of Floydian spaciness. Sonically, the album slams and, thankfully, it got a great vinyl pressing thanks to Precision Record Pressing in Canada. The record contains a wink to longtime fans with the inclusion of Living Again—a song first played in 2001 and never getting the studio treatment. Wilson not only brings his great vocal and instrumental prowess to the band but also his skills as a songwriter, with the LP featuring four of his own compositions.

Of course, moe. is best experienced in person, preferably in a beautiful, rural setting with friends and family and smiling strangers all around but Circle of Giants is a damn fine album to jam until you can get there.