Across their first three albums, Durand Jones & The Indications have delved into sounds from decades past to create a fusion of heartbreaking jazz, ravishing soul and electrifying disco. For its fourth studio album, Flowers (out June 27 on Dead Oceans), the trio of Jones, Aaron Frazer and Blake Rhein is tapping its own history for a sound that melds the members’ individual influences.
“There’s a lot of fantastic music that sounds very similar act to act,” Frazer says. “We’ve found a sound that people can’t imitate — and sounds distinctly us.”
Here’s what inspired the group to achieve that sound while creating Flowers.
Listening Sessions
Having debuted in 2012, the trio felt comfortable telling management it didn’t want to work on a timeline for Flowers. “The first time I hung out with Blake and Aaron outside of school was sitting on a couch, listening to music and talking about it,” Jones recalls of how the band ultimately formed. “We didn’t want to feel any pressure [with this album]. That allowed us to have some space to chill, listen to some music, talk and see where each person’s ears are at.”
Quilts
An avid quilt collector, Rhein has two from the 1800s hung in his home studio where the group recorded Flowers. When the band drove to North Carolina to record a portion of the album, Rhein purchased a vintage quilt along the way and used it for acoustic paneling and muting the drum kit. “The first one I found is called a crazy quilt, and they’re made from all these scraps. They’re little bits that kind of look like stained glass mosaic,” Rhein says of one he found in the trash and cleaned himself. “I have an appreciation for craftsmanship.”
Movie Series
After long days in the studio, the trio would spend a few more hours at Rhein’s Chicago home watching what Frazer describes as “bad movies” like the Taken trilogy and the made-for-TV Temptations biopic The Temptations, which he calls “a quote machine.” He adds: “A lot of the time, friendship gets sidelined in favor of the more pressing dimensions of the relationship, which are business partner, creative partner, travel partner and performing onstage together. It’s nice to be able to nurture the friendship part, which was a central pillar of this album-making process.”
This story appears in the June 21, 2025, issue of Billboard.
