Swami John Reis - Navajo White Swami John Reis

Navajo White is a color. It’s the color of an off white, interior, house paint. Throughout his teens into adulthood, John Reis was as a house painter by trade. The soiled walls of evacuated apartments was his canvas. Here he would cover up the residue of life’s stains with a fresh coat of the beige, human white-out that is Navajo White. Amongst the vacated, drywall chambers littered with the scant detritus of a fleeing existence is where this record began. It started as road noise, a repetitious hum of a fictional dialogue. A languageless, argument of noise that took shape as a disconnect between two people. They are both barricaded by an impenetrable surface tension that harbors the distortion of their prolonged isolation from the world beyond their self imposed exile. For all that can’t be solved or thrown away here’s a thick coat of Navajo White to cover our tracks as if to say “we were never here and this never happened.”

This is the fifth Swami John Reis album and features Jason Kourkounis (Hot Snakes, Delta 72, Night Marchers) on drums as well as contributions from Rick Froberg (Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu, Obits) on guitar, Gar Wood (Hot Snakes, Tanner, Night Marchers) on bass, Joe Guevara (Jejune, Swami and the Bed Of Nails) on piano and keyboards and Rob Crow (Pinback, PLOSIVS) and Jacob Turnbloom (Mrs. Magician) on backing vocals. Taking musical cues from later period Wipers, the more low key Saints songs, early recordings of The Church as well as The Damned on their Black Album, Navajo White pits sentiment vs the unsentimental. Recorded by John Reis at City of Refuge, San Diego with additional recording and mixing by Ben Moore at Singing Serpent and mastered by Dave Gardner at DSG Mastering. This record is dedicated to house painters everywhere.