hypersongs

Durand Jones & The Indications

A retro-soul group formed in 2012 at Indiana University in Bloomington, whose debut album, recorded on a four-track, includes "Is It Any Wonder?", a falsetto ballad sung by Aaron Frazer that found a large audience through a 2017 Paste session video.

The IU Soul Revue

Durand Jones, from Louisiana, moved to Indiana University in 2012 for postgraduate study in classical saxophone and joined the IU Soul Revue, a collegiate ensemble that preserves Black popular music. There he met Aaron Frazer and Blake Rhein, who were students at the Jacobs School of Music. Jones says the Soul Revue gave him a chance to leave Louisiana and continue his music studies, and quotes its leader, Tyron Cooper, that there are three main components of soul: the love song, the social consciousness and the party. Bassist Kyle Houpt and organist Justin Hubler came from Rhein and Frazer's blues rock band Charlie Patton's War.

They began writing in late fall 2012 as something they did for fun on Sunday nights, recorded on a Tascam four-track over about two years, and played their first show in May 2014. In 2015 the Ohio label Colemine approached them and released a first 45, "Smile" and "Tuck 'n' Roll", and the debut album followed in 2016. Chicano lowrider communities circulated the music early and became its champions.

Dead Oceans and after

Dead Oceans reissued the debut on March 16, 2018 as a deluxe edition with live material (Live Vol. 1) and two covers, "You and Me" by Penny and the Quarters and "Put a Smile on Your Face" by E.J. and the Echoes. American Love Call (Dead Oceans and Colemine, March 1, 2019) was recorded in Brooklyn in 2018, and Michael Montgomery joined on bass late that year; Private Space (July 30, 2021) was recorded at Diamond Mine in New York, written and produced by Jones, Frazer, Rhein and Steve Okonski, and reached number 127 in the US and 98 in the UK. Frazer made a solo album, Introducing..., in 2021 with Dan Auerbach producing; Jones's solo Wait Til I Get Over came out in May 2023, and the group's fourth studio album, Flowers, on June 27, 2025. The debut and American Love Call were both nominated for best R&B album at the Libera Awards.

They played KEXP at the THING festival in Port Townsend, Washington on August 27, 2022, and NPR's Tiny Desk in November 2024; NME wrote that not since the 1970s has there been such an appetite for soul music. Rhein has also worked as a researcher for the Numero Group, producing reissue compilations.

Albums

Songs

  • Is It Any Wonder? Durand Jones & The Indications · 2016

    Track six of the debut, with Aaron Frazer singing high in falsetto and Durand Jones in harmony, and the best known of their records on video.

Sources

  1. Durand Jones & The Indications, Wikipedia
  2. Interview: Durand Jones and the Indications on their origins and growth, WFYI (2025)
  3. Durand Jones & The Indications, Bandcamp
  4. Durand Jones interview, Something Else! Reviews (2016-07-15)