Drawing the night in around his private, unnerving vigil, Ellis Swan returns to Quindi Records with an album of cracked beauty and haunted balladry. The Chicago-based singer-songwriter debuted on the label last year with a collaborative project called Dead Bandit, a vividly produced instrumental set in thrall to the badlands and a laconic, languid Americana.

Under his own name, Swan records intimate, poetic songs in a stark fashion, so fragile they might disintegrate in between your fingers were you to pick them up. He draws the microphone close to pick up every whisper and drags the music through layer upon layer of tape fuzz, leaving room for atmospheric impressions which loom out of the walls like the ghosts of past misdeeds. These pieces play on the natural distortion and delirium which occurs at the farthest end of the night – the hour before dawn might hope to break the veil of darkness.

Swan’s is a hauntological sound, but like the late Israeli rockabilly icon Charlie Megira his process strikes a spooked tone past revivalism and out of time or place. The only anchor which places Swan anywhere is the subtle presence of Katherine Swan providing lyrics to ‘3am’ and lyrics and backing vocals to ‘It Could Be Worse’.

The impression cast is of one man and his guitar, but there are other textures tucked into the music – the muffled murmur of a drum machine or a low frequency organ hum, some desolate piano, other treated percussive impulses which might well have been the work of incidental sprites while the four-track was rolling.

There are fuller cuts like ‘Evening Sun’ and the title track ‘3am’ which play with structural dynamics and creep out of the shadows a touch, while passages of plaintive, instrumental unease such as the hypnotic, mantra-like ‘Chinatown’ protract the space between songs. ‘Swing’ lolls between moments of bottomless silence and a discernible, rickety funk, and ‘Puppeteers Tears’ teases out a buried drama. But primarily, it’s the light touch of ‘Horses Bones’ and tin can tenderness of ‘She’s My Sweet Summer Storm’ which spell out the spellbinding character of 3am; a singular creation fusing the best qualities of folk, blues and Americana with a fearlessly experimental sound palette.


All tracks were written, recorded, and performed by Ellis Swan, except for ”3am" lyrics written by Katherine and Ellis Swan, and "It Could Be Worse" lyrics written by, and additional vocals by, Katherine Swan.

Mastered by MA Spaventi. Manufactured at R.A.N.D. Muzik. Distributed by Word and Sound GmbH.

Layout by JDN.

QUI006.

C+P Quindi Records 2022.

Special thanks: Jolene and Joseph.

Quindi's special thanks to LEDX.

[QUI006] Ellis Swan - 3am PREVIEW

Puppeteers Tears

Swing

Bondo is four Los Angeles musicians collaging displaced tempos and fractured melodies. Their sparsely vocalized music conspires to bring into view a practical enlightenment, evoking the sandy contentment of an exhausted marine sunset. The organically mechanical compositions wander with the intention not to be aimless, but to be consumed in Process.
Bondo comes to Quindi Records to release its first full-length album, Print Selections, and it is saturated in the communal consciousness of the band. The songs call for the individuals to dissolve to make way for the music.
The lyrical content of the record tells of a mind made anew, cleared of its data & ego to witness nothing in particular. Bringing the past with them, the band makes clear allusions to their influences - their tones reminiscent of outfits like Duster, Unwound, Acetone & Fugazi, but also has heavy nods to more formless genres like the dub melodies of King Tubby and the jazz of Archie Shepp.
The music feels like the dusty bed of a scanner, plays like the light leaking from underneath its lid.

Releases February 24, 2023

All songs written, performed and recorded by Bondo

Mixed & mastered by Andrew Oswald

Design & layout by Jess Guzman

C+P Quindi Records 2023

Quindi's special thanks to Monica Mazzoli and LEDX

Distributed by wordandsound

[QUI007] Bondo - Print Selections PREVIEW

Print Selections

Egoizing

New Brain

Heralding 2023 from way out west, Monde UFO land on Quindi with a distinctive album of dream pop vignettes and outer rim punk exotica.

Hailing from the same Californian heat haze as recent Quindi signings Bondo, Monde UFO have manifested in the past four years through a series of DIY releases including their 2021 album 7171 and last year’s set of Fugazi covers, 4 Songs. The loose fit project centres around the singing, playing and songwriting of Ray Monde and Kris Chau and features Kern Haug on drums. The resulting sound arrives as a resourceful analog of plush 60s pop captured through the modest means of a truly independent musical endeavour.

The sound rendered on Vandalized Statue touches on dubby atmospherics, the lilting breeze of bossa nova and the introverted muse of US indie rock, but the end result is a natural, cohesive whole centered around the songwriting. Imagine the girl from Ipanema sat toking in a comfortable spot in the corner of the dive bar while someone weaves her a tall tale or two, and you might be somewhere in the right direction. The stories in the lyrics unfurl as meandering narratives taking you through everyday exchanges and far-fetched, cosmic scenarios alike. At every turn the cosy musicality gives everything a relatable, homespun charm, even as the mixing desk becomes a mess and the lo-fi FX crash into each other.

The album will be fronted by three singles which reflect the wide reach of Monde UFO’s sound. ‘Visions of Fatima’ is one of the more melancholic pieces on the album, fronted by laconic organ and centring on cracked vocals with an off key charm that indirectly evokes Jeffrey Lee Pierce. ‘Government Employee’ is a sun-kissed trip of low-key lounge surrealism, bizarro storytelling and shuffling exotica splendour which broadly defines the woozy mood of Vandalized Statue. ‘Garden Of Agony’ is a more delicate but no less dreamy piece matching electric tremolo with acoustic fingerpicking balladry which hides its considerable depths behind a seemingly simple arrangement.

At once intimate and projected into the cosmos, Monde UFO add to the particular path Quindi is taking through hidden corners of independent music with a romantic, restless spirit.

Releases April 21, 2023

C+P Quindi Records 2023

Distributed by wordandsound

[QUI008] Monde UFO - Vandalized Statue To Be Replaced With Shrine PREVIEW

American Cream Band 'Presents' [QUI009] - out 15th of September 2023, Vinyl & Digital




At once a spiritually-charged journey and a shit-kicking party record, American Cream Band comes to Quindi covering all the bases. 

American Cream Band was formed by Twin-Cities musician Nathan Nelson around 10 years ago, taking the form of improvised live shows and albums Frankensteined from these sessions into exultant, fully-formed records you can sink your teeth into. The trick with improvised music is to start with intentions, however abstract they might be, and Nelson leads his rolling cast of collaborators into the creative fray with subtle guidance which drives the impulsive musical moment forward. 

The band’s previous records have manifested on labels like Moon Glyph and Medium Sound, and now Presents arrives in a freewheeling flash of snappy new wave, skronky sax, call and response sass and some krautrock-minded sonic cosmology. The album came together in December 2021, when Nelson took ten musicians to legendary studio Pachyderm in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Living together, eating together, and with Nelson quietly setting up his low-key magick intentions around Jupiter’s planetary frequency and the studio’s abundance of elephant statues and carpets, they laid down some drum-heavy sessions that became the building blocks of the record. 

‘Taste What We Taste’ is the perfect example of an exuberant groove pounded on skins as a vessel for a joyous get-down, with the singers and players free to freak out on top. Nelson remains at the centre of the melee, throwing half-sardonic, half-heartfelt calls out for connection. ‘Banana’ celebrates nonsense and holds down the most serious of beats - a disco-not-disco deadeye dripping in late night sleaze and lysergic potential. On ‘Royal Tears’, the jagged guitar chops call back to Gang Of Four, while the hot n’ heavy sax from Cole Pulice baits James Chance and all the other angular New York un-jazz misfits.   

Amongst his other implied intentions for the recordings, Nelson wanted to channel opposites, not least the distinct male-female energies in his vocal sparring with the girls on assistance duties. It wouldn’t be right to call them backing singers as they shoot back at his punchy mantras, bringing a certain fierce femininity that tips its hat to The B-52’s Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson, not to mention iconic post-punk bands like Au Pairs, Delta 5 and Bush Tetras. 

There’s space for the dreamier kosmische which has crept into the American Cream oeuvre in the past, as ‘Sirens’ opens the album up in a swirling pond of rag tag percussion and molten synths. ‘Words Would Handcuff Us’ cools the whole riotous assembly down in unmoored perfection, a strung-out Bossa nova seance dusted with celestial drips from analogue spaceships. 

Equally treading the line between light and dark, conscious and unconscious, the sacred and profane, Presents is a life-affirming, creep-under-the-skin listening experience – a joyously transient chapter in the evolution of American Cream Band.


Presence was recorded and mixed by Nick Tveitbakk at Pachyderm Studios with the exception of 'Sirens', which was recorded by Eric Kramlinger at Quincy Street Studios and mixed by Luke Tweedy at Flat Black Studios. Editing and additional recording by Nathan Nelson at Earth 2. Mastering by Dave Gardner at Infrasonic Sound. Lyrics and arrangements by Nathan Nelson.

The following people contributed to the making of this record and without whom it would not have been possible:

Nic & Quindi, Pete Biasi, Marissa Galan, Liz Buhmann, Sophia Deutsch, Cole Pulice, Adam Patterson, Mat Heinrich, Alex Achen, Andy Rockwood, Adam Marx, Meg Ashling, Sho Nikado, Michael Gallope, Joe Berns, Jason Edmonds and Nick Tveitbakk.

Designed by Hannah M. Haugberg. Cover photo by Colin Simmons.

Vinyl manufactured at R.A.N.D. Muzik, Leipzig, Germany.

Distributed by Goodfellas 

C+P Quindi Records 2023

[QUI009] American Cream Band - Presents  PREVIEW

https://fortunatoduruttimarinetti.bandcamp.com/album/eight-waves-in-search-of-an-ocean

Co-released with Soft Abuse [SAB018]

Out November 10th, 2023, Vinyl & Digital via Goodfellas / Forced Exposure / MidHeaven / Disk Union

With its tenth record from Fortunato Durutti Marinetti, Quindi continues to celebrate songwriting and storytelling framed by curious musicality. In keeping with the label’s trajectory to date, this is an album which draws on a universal human sentimentality and presents it with an uncommon flair. In the case of Toronto-based Daniel Colussi, the man behind Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean, his melancholic poetry cuts through with a clarity which calls to mind all-time greats from Anette Peacock through to Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen.

Turin-born Colussi has drifted through various bands, guises and styles over the past 20 years, but since settling into Fortunato Durutti Marinetti as a vehicle for his songs, he’s found a strong expressive impetus which transcends genre to become entirely hinged on the power of his words and melodies. The first album under this alias was a 2020 cassette album, Desire, later pressed on vinyl due to demand in tandem with the release of 2022’s Memory’s Fool. On each record, Colussi has found distinct arrangements of players to set the mood, ranging from gently lilting art and folk rock through to orchestrated balladry, but Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean widens the palette of Fortunato Durutti Marinetti to create an album in which each song feels like a tale unto itself.

Colussi’s renewed approach is instantly apparent as album opener ‘Lightning On A Sunny Day’ unfurls, informed greatly by producer Sandro Perri’s input pursuing a hybrid electro-organic sound. The addition of drum machines and synths to the musical palette bring with them the strong connotations of pop while the sax and violin sounds similarly smooth and silky, and one can’t help but think of John Martyn’s slide into the digital sound of Sapphire or Kraftwerk’s bittersweet synthetic tenderness.

Within this sound, there’s still space for the energy to fluctuate according to the whims of songs. ‘The Flowers’ turns inward with a soft-touch composition as delicate as the petals Colussi describes falling to the floor. ‘Misfit Streams’ and first single ‘Clerk Of Oblivion’ savour the fluid, luxuriant tone of fretless bass with all the 80s connotations intact. Colussi remains the central focus whatever happens around him, in possession of the kind of unforced charisma which drives a song deep into the listener’s heart. It’s at once entirely his own style and yet comforting and familiar. The lyrics might sweep you into the singer’s inner world, similarly to the experience listening to late 60s Tim Buckley, or you might well inhale the mellow jazziness of the harmonic movement like you would Joni Mitchell on Hejira.

The emotional direction of each track is never linear - ‘Smash Your Head Against The Wall’ snarls its rhythm section before the strings sow their aching beauty to cool the song’s temper, winding up as a track of distinct halves jabbing at each other. “I Need You More’ leaves space for spiralling flute solos and strangely stiff, militaristic drum rolls in the midst of a sweet, slightly sad synth ballad, the final wave receding back into the tidal undulations of Colussi’s unique exploration of his muse.

The artist himself dubs his musical expression as “poetic jazz rock” with a sideways glance - it’s not exactly poetry, far from trad jazz and it doesn’t really rock, yet the tag feels uncannily like it fits, just like the curious music it’s used to describe.

Vinyl Manufactured at R.A.N.D. Muzik Liepzig, DE

C+P Quindi Records & Soft Abuse

[QUI010 - SAB018] Fortunato Durutti Marinetti - Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean PREVIEW

Out Feb 9th 2024 via wordandsound (EU) & Forced Exposure (US)

Pre-Order here:
https://deadbanditmusic.bandcamp.com/album/memory-thirteen

Three years on from the desolate beauty of their debut, Quindi Records is proud to present the second album from Dead Bandit. The ghosts of their past endeavours still haunt their guitars, but on Memory Thirteen the duo’s delicately dishevelled Southern gothic feels tonally distinct from their prior outing.

Dead Bandit is Ellis Swan and James Schimpl — the former a noted solo singer-songwriter from Chicago with a penchant for eerie, witching hour murder ballads and the latter an accomplished Canadian multi-instrumentalist with a bias towards heartworn, roaming soundscapes. Their instrumental collaboration has an open, lyrical quality which says as much as any spoken line, and on this album they’ve especially embraced the power of contrast as we’re guided between scenes, sometimes within the confines of one track.

‘Peel Me An Orange’ is especially instructive in this regard, beginning as a blown-out paean to sonic degradation and the acute sense of hopelessness it projects, only to yield to a lilting tape loop of twanging guitar before entirely widening out in an emphatic burst of post-rock optimism. Post-rock isn’t noted for its banal cheeriness as a genre, and Dead Bandit aren’t about to lay down feel-good drive-time anthems, but the sense of pulling at extremes of energy and introspection show Swan and Schimpl to be testing the emotional limits of their weatherbeaten sound. The cautiously sentimental mood of ‘Blowing Kisses’ hints at the hard-won light which can be encountered while pointedly driving into darkness.

Sometimes noise is a subtle device - a looming bed of unease under the forthright pluck of Swan’s distinct guitar tone or the cracking round the edges of a beaten up drum machine. On ‘Memory Thirteen’ the distortion on the bass becomes a central figure in its haggard waltz, while ‘Staircase’ and ‘Perfume’ leave the signal wet until the delay feedback becomes the body of the riff. Either way, the sound is never left untouched as Swan and Schimpl grow more comfortable in their exchange, blurring their respective sonic languages as they expand their shared vocabulary to create an album of depth, difference and devoted distortion.

All tracks written, recorded and mixed by James Schimpl & Ellis Swan

Quickscene recorded live 3/19/2023 in London by Ivan Muela

Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi

Artwork by Karolina Kolodziej

Photos by James and Ellis

Collages by Stella Laurenzi and Leo Calder

Vinyl Manufactured at R.A.N.D. Muzik, Leipzig, DE and assembled at Quindi Studios

Special Thanks: Rachel, Leo, Rowan, Hazel, Jason, Katherine and Jolene

c+p Quindi Records 2024

[QUI011] Dead Bandit - Memory Thirteen PREVIEW

https://cashmereradio.com/

Tracklist:

1 - E.R.P. - Summer Nights ( Tuppence )
2 - DHS - Hypnosis ( Tino Corp )
3 - Reedale Rise - Light Through A Birds Wing ( Frustrated Funk )
4 - CN - The Stinson Effect ( Sleepers )
5 - Gary Gritness - Fly Shit ( Hypercolour )
6 - Donnie Tempo - E-Base Factor ( Alleviated Records )
7 - CAB92 - Untitled B2 ( London In Transmission )
8 - SW - Reminder Part Two B1 - ( Sued ) 
9 - John Tejada - Repurposed ( Residual Recordings )
10 - Leaves - Alley 4 [Iron Curtis Edit] ( Sounds Benefit )
11 - Nightdrivers - Stressedout ( Holic Trax )
12 - Robin Hall - Velvet ( Groovepressure )
13 - The Rurals - Real Time Peace ( Refried Music )

Rufus @ Cashmere X Serendeepity: Quattroquarti In-Store 21.12.2016

DJ and producer raised in Florence, Italy.  Owner of Quindi Records.

Member of Nightdrivers, Tru West, The Leftovers and BSS aka Bosconi Soundsystem,

Rufus @ Cashmere X Serendeepity: Quattroquarti In-Store 21.12.2016

Rufus

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