djmadi83
Cover of the year! For fans of Lou Reed, Destroyer and well-crafted pop music you can also dance to.
Favorite track: Lightning On A Sunny Day.
Lightning on a sunny day
Deep flame across the sky
Deep vein across the skin
A whip of light, a knife of light
cuts right through the still of things
And after the flash all that’s left are ghosts
to keep to you company
How do you leave something behind?
A wish made in a dream dissolves just as it arrives
You wish that you could stall
You wish you could prolong
You wish you could defer
You wish you could postpone
‘Cause something heavy’s coming down
Just don’t let it touch the ground,
Don’t ask me to explain
The spirit of the thing
The quality of light
The distorted logic of dreams
Or the chances of extreme possibilities
Such as lightning on a sunny day
Do you know what I mean when I say
Lightning on a sunny day?
Heaven’s doorman gets paid to stand
just outside the kingdom
Are they ever going to let him in?
Burning Man, he’s the guy who gets paid to burn alive
Swirls of smoke rise
from the ashtray of his head
from the ashtray of his head, where the ashes collect
Where echoes reflect from side to side
Clerk of Oblivion you get paid to work the void
But you’re so delicate, you’re a statue made of porcelain
Standing headless and with several limbs missing
“Severely damaged but still functioning”
Standing naked through the storm
Nine million rainy days pour down on you
Clerk of Oblivion
Nine million rainy days pour down on you
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 ‘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 spiraling 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.
credits
released November 3, 2023
Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean was performed by:
supported by 20 fans who also own “Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean”
Nice to hear the freak fusion underground alive and well as Quindi enable & encourage Monde UFO to casually blend bossa kitsch, 50s exotica, 60s psychedelia, 80s gothic melancholy, 90s indie & free jazz whilst effortlessly surfing self induced lysergic swells to sound like everyone and no one and drag small town freaks everywhere away from their bongs to backroom venues. TheSlowMusicMovement
supported by 18 fans who also own “Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean”
An incredible piece of art, love it from start to finish.
Dead Bandit has made a remarkable album with so much variety.
Can't stop listening to it! Thomas Beers