At the beginning of February, Los Angeles musician Joe Cardamone began a new project called Quarentina. This video series features Cardamone acting alongside Queen Kwong, an actress and friend of the musician for years. The film, delivered in a series of high-resolution, black & white vignettes, are usually around three minutes long and detail the slow-motion unraveling of a couple that while close, have some inner demons that rear their ugly head as the series progresses.
Once completed, each of the songs from the series will appear on a new solo album from Cardamone called Quarentina. The record will be out on June 1. Unlike the noisey, chaotic, guitar-heavy proto-punk music Cardamone is known for producing with The Icarus Line, the music on this album is largely, if not fully, based around austere, ambient electronic instrumentation and his vocals.
Today we’re premiering the 9th installment in the series, which is just a little less than halfway through. The first few videos of the series depict the couple’s everyday life – walking the dog, making each other breakfast, doing cocaine. But around the sixth video, the demons in their relationship begin to seep into their lives. In the videos, this is shown quite literally, with Queen Kwong’s character first bearing her jagged teeth and sinister scowl when Cardamone approaches her on a beach. That the clips are in black & white adds to omnious feeling of terror, as the viewer is certain that something awful will befall the couple.
“Part 9 is basically the halfway point in our series of 19 films that Quarentina is comprised of,” said Cardamone. “We have been making these things in real time, once a week. It’s an insane way to work but this way there’s an immediacy to it that we might not have otherwise. We just jam on an idea and flip it out. No filter of time and no looking back. Our characters have reached a point in the story where their love is under siege to their demons. Being locked in a house with someone / anyone can crack the foundation of even the strongest bond and that is what we are fucking with here. Internal becomes external and vice versa. The shadow versions of the characters are gaining more power over their emotions and paranoia starts to quietly rule. Trust issues bring skeletons out of the closet.”
The Icarus Line is unfortunately no more following the tragic death of guitarist Alvin Deguzman after years-long battle with cancer. Cardamone detailed the demise of the band in the semi-fictional film The Icarus Line Must Die, which starred Cardamone along with his wife Charlotte (plus appearances by Annie Hardy, Keith Morris and more). Cardamone released a solo album called Holy War – he was working on a pair of follow-up albums when the pandemic struck and he eventually moved on to the Quarentina project.
Quarentina Track List
1. “Laws”
2. “Dead Sky”
3. “Flowers”
4. “Nine of Swords”
5. “New Moon”
6. “Lisbon”
7. “Count in Sevens”
8. “Nite Theme (Rock n Roll)”
9. “Crushed Skull”
10. “Sabbath”
11. “Yeshua”
12. “Cluster B”
13. “Day Six”
14. “Red Flag”
15. “Dec Piano”
16. “Revelations”
17. “The Tower”
18. “Baby Blue”
19. “UR So Cool 2”
20. “USA”
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