paolo latini
an international and ambitious production by a small and yet prestigious Italian label, “From the Basement" starts with the post-rock of early Tortoise, and enriches it with soft touches of electronics and echoes of Bone Machine/Real Gone-era Tom Waits, with the oblique folk by Neil Young and with a hint of Morriconian atmospheres, and in the end gives new life and new relevance to old and somewhat codified genres. listeningwind.music.blog/2021/06/17/deadbandit2021/Favorite track: Child Ballads.
Quindi Records continues to yield intriguing prospects as we reach the third edition, moving from Woo’s astral ruminations via Cabaret Du Ciel’s sonorous meditations on to the dusty, dusky mantras of Dead Bandit. Maintaining the ambiguous creative practices of the label’s previous releases, From The Basement reaches to the earth for the malleable grit of post-rock while making the most of the broader sonic outlooks afforded by kosmische and electronic effects processes.
Dead Bandit are Chicagoan songwriter Ellis Swan and Canadian multi-instrumentalist James Schimpl. Swan has previously released solo works including the stunning, inward-looking album I’ll Be Around, a lo-fi Southern gothic dragging the husk of country ballads through battered signal chains. In Dead Bandit, Swan and Schimpl’s artistic vision casts its gaze outwards on a vast expanse, where the distortion has space to stretch its legs and the drums pound out into open space. There’s a common tonality at work here, the duos guitars telling a thousand hard-bitten tales where Swan’s voice falls silent. It’s no surprise to learn Swan and Schimpl’s reference points include Neil Young’s Dead Man soundtrack, SF noise rockers Chrome and the imperial work of the late, great Mark Sandman of Morphine.
You can sense Jim Jarmusch’s America just lingering behind the road-weary thrum of ‘These Clouds’ and detect the shadow of Tom Waits lurking in the raunchy lurch of ‘FF M’. The pointedly titled ‘Sedated’ calls to mind the slowcore movement and its rejection of rock n’ roll’s fixation on speed. Instead, tonality and atmosphere are key across From The Basement, although the ambient lull of ‘I See Her There’ is the exception rather than the rule. Dead Bandit’s desert sound has vibrancy and immediacy to match its moodiness, from the sultry swagger of opening track ‘Mud’ to the bold and borderline bombastic ‘When I Looked Around’.
Like the previous Quindi releases, this record is inherently experimental in nature, but not at the expense of its warmth and instant appeal. From the basement, an inquisitive pair with primitive tools look out and imagine a colossal plain as the canvas on which to paint their picture.
credits
released June 4, 2021
All tracks, written, recorded, mixed and performed by James Schimpl and Ellis Swan. Also appearing: Adam Smith (Drums on "Untitled" and "Valentine"; 1st Drum Loop on "These Clouds"; Percussion/Harmonica on "I See Her There") and Steven Skolka (2nd Bass on "I See Her There").
Artwork & Graphics by Visnja Susak. Photographs by Ellis Swan.
Mastered by MA Spaventi. Manufactured at R.A.N.D. Muzik.
Dead Bandit's special thanks: Eva, Rowan, Hazel, Rachael, Jason, Diane, Andrea, Katherine and Jolene.
Quindi's special thanks to Ellis Swan and James Schimpl, Paul H Williams aka Memphis for discovering Dead Bandit and LEDX for their support.
Record label founded in Florence in 2020 and run by Rufus.
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wordandsound
"With eclecticism and receptiveness as its compass, Quindi refuses the entrenchment of genre tropes and aims straight for the listener’s heart instead, in an attempt to trace a potentially infinite musical path of exploration."...more
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