Third Full length album out October 24th, 2025
Go here to purchase this:
https://montalban.bandcamp.com/album/sinfon-a
With Sinfonía, their third full-length album and first release on Armistead Burwell Smith IV’s (Pinback, Three Mile Pilot) Go-Home Records, The Montalban Quintet present their most ambitious and collaborative work to date. The album cover, a striking woodcut print by renowned artist Artemio Rodríguez, depicts a skeleton conductor leading an orchestra of ecstatic skeleton musicians—an image both macabre and unifying, perfectly reflecting the group’s blend of spontaneity and careful curation.
Beyond Genre
Never content to sit within a single label, The Montalban Quintet draw freely from jazz, indie rock, post-punk, minimalism, and beyond. Like a symphony weaving together diverse instruments, their music celebrates collaboration, family, and friendship. Though “quintet” is a playful UCSD-born misnomer (they’ve never actually had five members), the band continues to embody intimacy and connection at its core.
The Band
Sinfonía features:
• Chris Prescott (drums; also engineer – Pinback, No Knife, Tanner)
• Carl Prescott (trumpet)
• Francesco Leigh (bass)
• Jim Weiss (saxophones)
• Greg Friedman (guitar, vocals)
• Julie Kitterman (glockenspiel, percussion, vocals)
The album also includes contributions from friends and past members: Rodrigo Contreras (piano), Kenseth Thibideau (bass - Three Mile Pilot, Pinback, Sleeping People), Terrin Durfey (vocals -Boilermaker, The Jade Shader), Mike Stockalper (piano), and Marjorie Prescott (cello).
A Decade in the Making
Though much of the writing originates with Chris Prescott, Sinfonía expands the creative circle. Kitterman and others shaped key compositions, and many tracks evolved through improvisations in Prescott’s Encinitas home studio, The Belly of the Whale. Some songs trace back more than a decade, incorporating ideas from longtime collaborators and Emmy-winning composer Thibideau.
The album also carries deep emotional weight: “Deadlights” features the late Terrin Durfey’s final recorded vocals, honoring a close friend and preserving his creative spirit within the music.
A Shared Creative Process
The throughline of Sinfonía is community. The Prescott brothers have surrounded themselves with friends and even included their mother’s cello across all three albums, underscoring the project’s grounding in family. For the band, making music remains a way to spend meaningful time together—an act of healing, connection, and joy.
Sound & Spirit
Across Sinfonía, moods shift from dark and frenetic to light and playful, offering listeners a full emotional journey. Songs like “La Verdad” and “Submarine” embody this duality, balancing intensity with hope and resilience. Even in turbulent times, Montalban remind us that music—shared and imperfect—offers catharsis, perspective, and a vital sense of humanity.
Visual Resonance
Rodríguez’s woodcut artwork, Sinfonía Vital, mirrors the band’s ethos: the laborious, imperfect craft of carving wood reflects the messy beauty of collaborative art. Just as each print bears the mark of human touch, so too does Sinfonía embrace imperfection as a path to shared creativity and harmony.
