Durand Jones & The Indications: Durand Jones & The Indications [DEAD OCEANS]

Why you'll love it

This Dead Oceans pressing of the 2016 Colemine debut comes with a download card. It's the record that carried the band from one Bloomington show to the heart of the soul revival.

This edition

• Download card included
• Stereo mix

About the album

Some bands play hundreds of gigs before they make a record; Durand Jones & The Indications made a record and then played, more or less, one gig. Guitarist Blake Rhein and drummer and singer Aaron Frazer were students at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music when they met Durand Jones, a Louisiana native doing graduate work in classical saxophone, through the university's Soul Revue. Between 2012 and 2014 they wrote and recorded these songs on a Tascam four-track.

The sound is sweet, raw Southern soul, the sort that used to live on 45s. "Make a Change" opens with a righteous call, "Smile" and "Can't Keep My Cool" show off Jones's rough-hewn voice, "Groovy Babe" borrows a little Curtis Mayfield, and Frazer's falsetto floats in for the slow jams. "Is It Any Wonder?" is the heart-tugger, and "Tuck 'N' Roll" closes with a strut.

Ohio's Colemine Records put it out in 2016, indie shops and critics championed it, the band reunited to tour, and Dead Oceans reissued it in 2018. The Chicano lowrider community took them to heart early, which is fair; it's a record that sounds best with the windows down and the suspension doing something it probably shouldn't.

Also at Kops: more Durand Jones & The Indications on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Dead Oceans / Colemine (cat# DOC157), a reissue of the 2016 album.