aquarian blood
Counting Backwards Again was released on April 19,2024 on Black and Wyatt Records, Head Perfume Records and Beluga Records. “A truly international affair to close out this chapter of the Blood journey as we enter our 10th year. The third part of the trilogy that began with “A Love That Leads to War” and continues through “Bending the Golden Hour,” this record represents the resolution of this leg of the trip that has unfolded over these three albums. “Counting Backwards Again” reflects even more of the sounds and images of our travels through the ever-desirable “No Service” remoteness that stretches throughout the mountain west where the loudest quiet that can be found exists. the open spaces point back to true north no matter which direction we are facing ••• some of the tunes here are sparse and lean, some feature almost no actual musical instrumentation, a little Wooden Flute Rock for yer afternoon so… + there’s a Peter Tosh/Wailers cover, and some tunes feature friends and collaborators alike. All the Thanks to Keith Cooper and Jesse James Davis for their general badassery and integral contributions and Annalisabeth Craig for the beautiful violin to accompany Sister Darnelle on “Ever and Ever” that closes out the album ••• Huge thanks to the supremely talented Sara Mosely for taking JB’s unintelligible cover design concepts and making them a reality he couldnt even have fully imagined. I sent her a shitty pic of a tshirt lol and she created this perfection. This album also represents a new ending and an even newer beginning thats been brewing for a minute and Sara created images that express that perfectly and we are grateful ❤️ and Love to #1 Daughter Cheetah for the back cover photo ••• i’m gonna get off here now but theres more good news and new tunes to share right around the corner so stay tuned, cheers to the future, and hope to see you out in the zone here soon. - JB and Laurel Horrell
reviews
Although at their inception Memphis, Tennessee's Aquarian Blood were leaning towards garage-punk sounds, these days the septet are firmly drenched in psych-folk ideas, where the founders of the band, JB and Laurel Horrell bring us a distinct listening experience.
“Forecast Paralyzed” gets the record off to a warm, mysterious start, where the Horrell's voices are met with Jeremy Speakes' thumping drums and some spacey synth draw us in. “Cold Jet Steel” follows, and is more straightforward, folk oriented with soft acoustic guitar and poetic singing in a bare climate. - DAILY VAULT | READ MORE
Once you delve into their catalog, Aquarian Blood can be hard to pin down. Their 2017 debut LP on Goner was a rollicking, riff-heavy burst of punk guitar and synth noise centered on the hearty screams of co-founder Laurel Horrell. And while there were more minimalist flavors present, such as the moody “Won’t Forget to Die,” few were prepared for the sea change that came with their sophomore release. A Love That Leads to War was an abrupt, acoustic about-face that featured co-founder JB Horell’s delicate picking on a nylon string classical guitar, blended with low-key drum machines and hand percussion, spooky synths, and haunted, primitive melodies in a quieter vein. - MEMPHIS FLYER | READ MORE
Like a Lee Hazelwood/Nancy Sinatra duet being played from the bottom of an aquarium of blood. Or a country version of Hard Wired in Ljubljana being performed by Low. Male/female vocal dynamics functioning at a frightening level of chemistry. Sometimes sparse, sometimes stomping, rootsy instrumentation. These people have stories. I wanna hear them. Preferably in the back booth of a dark bar, but I’ll settle for repeatedly listening to these songs on this record. Beneath the bleakness, and the struggle, and the pain, is something so warm. I don’t know if it’s the devil, or love, or hard drugs, but it’s absolutely undeniable. -Razorcake | read more
Psychedelic and Folk-influenced band Aquarian Blood released new album Counting Backwards Again last month via Blood & Wyatt / Beluga / Head Perfume. They have now set a tour to launch June 5, 2024. The single and video for “Cold Jet Steel” are out now. In addition to J.B. Horrell on vocals, keyboards, guitars, drums, bass, keys, synth, flute and Laurel Horrell on vocals, percussion, and harmonica, Counting Backwards Again features Keith Cooper (Nots, The Sheiks) on synth, Jesse James Davis (Model Zero) and Robbie Grant (Vending Machine, Mouserocket) on guitars, Michael Peery on percussion, and Jeremy Speakes on drums. - WILDFIRE MUSIC + NEWS | READ MORE
The new LP hints at British acoustic folk in the melodies and fingerpicked guitars. The album is both creaky and unearthly, taking a less-is-more approach and creating mesmerizing sounds. Listening to the record, I hear the ghosts of Nick Drake and Johnny Cash, particularly Cash’s late-life American Recordings albums he made with Rick Rubin. Counting Backwards Again is haunting stuff, sounding like it has roots in the harsh soil of Tennessee but also veering into the metaphysical. - The Third Eye | READ MORE
Guitars, bass, drums and percussion, keys, synths, harmonica, and flute. It all helps to cultivate a lost-hippie eeriness in opener “Forecast Paralyzed,” as Laurel sings lead. “Cold Jet Steel,” with J.B.’s vocal, scales back to just some impressive fingerpicking and backing voices for a morning after coming down sort of feel.
The band approach in “You Stayed Behind” is shambling and sparse like a home recording (but too vivid to be categorized as lo-fi). Laurel’s singing pushes the whole to the outside, very nicely. She does the same in the slightly stunted strum gallop of “Golden Roan” with its intermittent blips of synth. It ends with the sound of a thunderstorm. - VINYL DISTRICT | READ MORE
Some of the pieces are sparse and acoustic, some contain almost no musical instrumentation, a little wooden flute rock for a Sunday afternoon. In this very hippie-esque instrumentation there is also a natural connection to the beautiful sound of the images that accompany their travels through the "no service" isolation. The music captures the essence of the vast, silent landscapes of the mountain west, where every sound and silence recalls the peace and beauty of these open spaces. -Underdog Fanzine | READ MORE
forecast paralyzed
As I’ve mentioned before, I developed a degenerative nerve condition called brachial neuritis in 2019. So my range of motion in my right arm is severely limited due to muscle atrophy from the shoulder down. At first I couldn’t play guitar and i drank a lot and got depressed about it cuz I always loved to shred etc. So I had to re-learn to play guitar holding it between my legs vertically and resting my right arm on my right leg for support cuz no muscles to hold it up. In the process of diagnosing this via MRI, they found a congenital condition I didn’t know I had called spinal stenosis - narrowing of the spaces in the bones of the spine. I asked the neurologist- an older dude who plays tennis and seems to enjoy a martini or 2 but great doc - what does this mean? He said well left untreated it will affect bowel control among other things. I was like “so i’ll start shitting my pants?” and he said “pretty much.” I was all hell naw i’m gonna figure this out holistically, naturally etc before they have to do surgery to grind down my vertebrae to make space for spinal fluid to get thru that lil traffic jam in the pic. So “forecast paralyzed” for me is to create the best possible situation given the hand i’m dealt - its the theme of the album. “i saw the cards lay forecast paralyzed, by my design my own paradise my own paradise”
Sister Darnelle wrote her verse about a period of her life when she was pushed to drop outta high school and marry the father of her expected child at age 17 only to lose the child and find herself looking for stability and direction. What she found was life as a topless dancer using the name Skye with a side hustle delivering contraband municipals (drugs) from Birmingham down along the florida gulf coast before landing in Memphis and finding her way to a better life. I LOVE HER - “I cut an early age, Skye on stage to guys, by my design my own paradise my own paradise”
JB Horrell
reviews
The lysergic layers don't take long to build in the new Aquarian Blood single. The minimal guitar is rapidly joined by medieval flute & bygone marching drums. Just as you're absorbing the time warped fusion, in comes an outsider spousal duet that poetically alludes to Horrell's serious degenerative health issues. Born from dire circumstances, this is a remarkable slice of freak folk & boding well for the album. - The Slow Music Movement | LISTEN TO THE PLAYLIST
Cold JET STEEL
Cold Jet Steel from Counting Backwards again will be released as a single on February 23, 2024 at the Folk Alliance in Kansas City, Missouri. Here is what JB Horrell has to say about Cold Jet Steel - We all see things, hear things, feel things, and experience things that are beyond our control, for better or worse. How we process and respond to those things defines us. We get served lemons, are we gonna complain that they’re a sour fruit or are we gonna make some fucking lemonade? We can’t control events but we can control how we react and move forward. Whether you believe there is progress or only change, one thing is certain - you gotta keep moving, keep going, keep surviving and thriving. This is “Cold Jet Steel.”