Pickin’ and singin’ and playing with verve and virtuosity – that’s the Squid City Slingers on their new Octave Records album, All That We Carried. The group mixes bluegrass, country, folk, Americana and other influences in an album of nine sparkling originals, recorded in stunning Pure DSD high-resolution sound.
The Squid City Slingers include Riki Olson on bass, mandolin, and lead and backup vocals; Sydney “Squid” Wojszynski singing and playing fiddle, and Chris Cuella on guitar and banjo. Calling them a bluegrass band would be oversimplifying it: the band moves between traditional up-tempo stylings to ballads, an instrumental, and original, though traditional-sounding country songs, with soaring harmonies.
Octave Records’ Pure DSD recording process captures the natural, airy sound of the acoustic instruments in all its realism and complexity, from the power and body of the acoustic guitar and upright bass to the pluck of the banjo and the distinctive high-register sound of the mandolin. The vocals are clear and warm, with a presence that makes the listener feel like they’re right in the studio with the performers. The spare instrumentation gives the album an open, inviting vibe.
All That We Carried was recorded and mixed in Pure DSD by Callum Bair at Octave Records using Octave’s Pyramix system, Manley Labs Force microphone preamps, and PS Audio Aspen FR30 loudspeakers for monitoring. The instruments were captured using Microtech Gefell M 930 and Royer 121 mics, with Neumann U87 microphones for the vocals. The album was mastered by Gus Skinas.
The Squid City Slingers.
“Down,” a song about traveling through the heartland, kicks off the album in up-tempo bluegrass style, with slapped bass, banjo fingerpicking, energetic fiddle playing, and adept lead and harmony vocals by Riki and Squid. “All I Need Is You” is a heartfelt love song where Riki declares, “Every time I look into her eyes/I’m stuck in a haze/’cause all I need is you.” “Escape the Shipwreck” is an instrumental that features adept interplay between mandolin, fiddle and banjo. “Falling Walls” begins with a startlingly realistic acoustic guitar, before Squid enters with her beautifully pure vocal and fiddle accompaniment. The bowed bass adds a flowing movement to this pensive song.
“Leave It to Me” has a sparse arrangement that lets Squid’s lyrics of love and regret shine through, and features an adept mandolin solo by Riki. “Monsters” is one of the standout songs on the album, with banjo, acoustic guitar, fiddle and bass all playing off each other while Squid sings about the “monsters in my closet” being something not to fear, but to set her free. Other highlights of All That We Carried include “I’ll Never Be” with its bouncing rhythm, the old-time country feel and sublime purity of Squid’s voice in “Trudge Through Snow,” and “Who Thought (That it Could Be True)” has an irresistible Gypsy jazz-meets line dancing energy that makes it the perfect album closer.
All That We Carried features Octave’s premium gold disc formulation, and the disc is playable on any SACD, CD, DVD, or Blu-ray player. It also has a high-resolution DSD layer that is accessible by using any SACD player or a PS Audio SACD transport. In addition, the master DSD and PCM files are available for purchase and download, including DSD 512, DSD 256, DSD 128, DSD 64, and DSDDirect Mastered 352.8 kHz/24-bit, 176.2 kHz/24-bit, 88.2 kHz/24-bit, and 44.1 kHz/24-bit PCM. (SRP: $29.)
I talked with Riki Olson about the making of the album, how the band got its name, and a lot more.
Frank Doris: How did the band meet and come together?
Riki Olson: Chris and I met through the music program at Minnesota State University in Mankato. We ended up starting a progressive alternative-rock band called The Only. One night, we were playing a shared bill at Moonshiners with another local band called Organ Child, and Squid was their fiddle player. That was the first time all three of us were really in the same musical orbit.
The three of us come from pretty different backgrounds. I was born in Sweden, moved around the United States growing up, and started playing live music in Chicago when I was about 11 with a blues and jazz group called the Hix Bros All Stars. Later, I lived in Los Angeles, worked as an audio-engineering apprentice, and played with several touring groups in rock, punk, R&B, and soul. Chris came from more of a rock and progressive-guitar background.
SW: I started playing violin when I was five. I grew up in a musical family, and music was one of the main ways we spent time together. My grandpa played shows at nursing homes and community events, and he would recruit the grandkids to come along and accompany him. I always wanted to be in a folk or bluegrass band someday.
After COVID, both The Only and Organ Child eventually fell apart. The three of us started playing together afterward, and it felt really natural. I brought in more of the folk, fiddle, and bluegrass side, while Riki and Chris brought all of their rock, jazz, blues, and other influences. We were not trying to copy any one type of band. We were just making music that sounded like the three of us, and that eventually became Squid City Slingers.
FD: Where does the name “Squid City Slingers” come from?
SW: Squid has been my nickname for a long time, so that part came pretty easily. When we were trying to come up with a band name, “Squid City Slingers” got thrown out and made all of us laugh. It was weird, memorable, and did not sound too serious, which fits our personalities pretty well.
I also like that it does not lock us into one genre. We love bluegrass and folk music, but we knew we were also going to bring in jazz, country, rock, and whatever else felt right. The name gave us room to be our own thing.
FD: Why do you play the kind of music you play? I hear influences of country, folk, jazz, pop, bluegrass and more.
SW: Folk and bluegrass have always felt really comfortable to me because that is where a lot of my early musical experiences came from. I love the storytelling, the harmonies, and how much emotion you can get out of acoustic instruments. Fiddle music can be really joyful and energetic, but it can also sound sad, eerie, or almost cinematic. I like having all of those colors available.
RO: The genre mix is really just a reflection of our backgrounds. We never sat down and decided that we needed a certain percentage of bluegrass, jazz, country, or pop. Squid has the strongest traditional folk and fiddle foundation. Chris brings a lot of technical guitar work, rock energy, and flatpicking. I come from blues, jazz, punk, soul, and a lot of years playing live in different kinds of bands.
I play upright bass pretty aggressively, so even when we are doing an acoustic song, there is usually a strong pulse underneath it. Sometimes a song wants to sound like bluegrass, sometimes it swings, and sometimes it is basically a rock or pop song played on acoustic instruments. We try to serve the song instead of worrying too much about what category it belongs in.
FD: What inspired some of the songs? Was “1500 Down” based on true events? “All I Need Is You” sounds like it was written about somebody. Was “Trudge Through Snow” literally inspired by winter?
RO: “1500 Down” is absolutely based on real events. We were on our way to play Rhythm of the River in Jackson, Minnesota, when Chris’s car was broken into and roughly $1,500 worth of music equipment was stolen. It was a brutal way to start a festival weekend, but some of the organizers and people in the community stepped up and helped raise around $400 for us. That part of the story mattered just as much as the theft. It reminded us that even when something goes wrong on the road, there are still good people who want to help.
The song also pulls from all the traveling we have done throughout the Midwest, including Wisconsin, North Dakota, Iowa, and especially the North Shore, where a lot of our journeys tend to begin. It is about the reality of being a working band. You lose money, equipment breaks, plans change, and sometimes the trip feels like a bad idea, but you keep getting in the car because you believe in what you are building.
“All I Need Is You” has been around much longer. I originally wrote it about a relationship I had while I was living in California with someone who is unfortunately no longer with us. She came from a difficult background and later died in a tragic accident while traveling in Florida. I do not want to go into all of the personal details, but the song came from a very real place of love, grief, and remembering someone whose life ended far too soon.
The original version was performed by my previous band, The Only. When we brought it into Squid City Slingers, we rebuilt it from the ground up. We changed the arrangement into more of a folk and Americana song and adjusted some of the lyrics so it fit the character of this band.
SW: “Trudge Through Snow” was definitely inspired by an actual Minnesota winter. There is no shortage of material there. But it also became about more than walking through snow. It is about those times when life feels heavy and every step takes more effort than it should.
There is something very familiar about putting on another layer, lowering your head, and just continuing forward. That is what the song became for me. It is about exhaustion, persistence, and getting through the difficult season even when you cannot see exactly where the path is leading.
FD: How did you meet Paul and the Octave team?
RO: That connection started with Squid’s dad, Mike. He is a serious audiophile and had been following Paul’s YouTube channel, and the work being done by the Octave Records team. He knew we were looking for the right place to make our first full-length album and told me that I should look into it.
I sent the Octave team a detailed application explaining who we were, what we had been building, and why I thought our music would be a good fit for their studio. At that point, it still felt like a long shot. It was one of those things where you send the message, hope somebody connects with it, and keep moving.
When they reached back out, the idea suddenly became real. We built an entire tour around the recording session. We traveled through North Dakota, Wyoming, and into Boulder, Colorado, recorded the album, and then came back through South Dakota and the Black Hills before returning to Minnesota. That trip became a major part of the album’s identity. We were not just flying in, recording, and leaving. We were living on the road, playing shows, and carrying all of that energy into the studio.
FD: What was it like to hear your music played back on the Octave system with its incredible fidelity?
RO: It was pretty wild. I have spent a lot of time in studios and around audio equipment, but this was a different level of detail. You could hear the actual body of the upright bass, not just the low frequencies. You could hear the wood, the strings, the fingers, and the room around it.
The impressive part was that the system made the trio sound bigger without making it sound fake. It still sounded like three people playing together in a room, but every layer was clear. Of course, that also means nothing gets hidden. Timing, tuning, vocal blend, pick noise, bow noise, dynamics, all of it is right there. It made us better because we could immediately hear what was working and what needed attention.
SW: Hearing the fiddle played back that way was honestly a little surreal. It sounded so close that you could hear the bow change direction and all of the small textures I usually notice only while I am playing. Sometimes high-fidelity systems can make a fiddle feel sharp or harsh, but this sounded detailed while still feeling warm and musical.
It also made me hear the way the three instruments interact differently. The little spaces between notes, breaths before harmonies, and tiny changes in volume suddenly mattered a lot more. It made the music feel very alive.
FD: Anything else you would like to add?
SW: We are in a really exciting stage right now because we have so much music in the works. We released Harbors & Highways, recorded another EP through the Minnesota Songwriter Sanctuary, and now we have our first full-length album recorded in Boulder. It feels like years of work are finally turning into something people will be able to hear.
We have also had some special opportunities recently, including performing on PBS’s Backroads and being featured on The Great American Folk Show. I still think about starting violin as a little kid and playing community shows with my family, so seeing where music has taken us now feels pretty incredible.
RO: We are trying to build this the right way and keep the core of the band intact while we grow. We have expanded our touring throughout the Midwest and into Wyoming and Colorado, and we are working with more promoters and booking agents now. That gives us more time to focus on songwriting, rehearsing, and improving the live show.
We still love playing breweries, weddings, private events, and community shows just as much as the bigger festival stages. The goal is to make records that sound honest, put on a live show that people remember, and keep pushing the band farther without losing the reason we started it in the first place.
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