![]() Weikel, who was listening to minimalist/ambient composers like Roedelius and Manuel Goettsching, had created dozens of abstract synth loops of chord progressions and arpeggios. It proved to be the most spontaneous, open, and varied writing process they had ever experienced. They left behind much of the cleaner-sounding modern digital studio equipment and instruments they’d always relied on, and embraced vintage gear that would color their recordings with a warmer, deeper sound: Tape and analog delays, spring and plate reverbs, tube preamps, ribbon microphones, and analog synths.Īs the new studio came together, so did the songwriting. But it wasn’t until the success of Keep Your Eyes Ahead that they could afford to step things up: The duo spent months (and many hard-earned dollars) retooling their studio. ![]() Summers and Weikel, who started playing together in 1996 and self-produced their first EP in 1999, have always been gearheads. They decided to use this opportunity to try something different. With twice the square footage, the space also had room for more gear, a lot more gear. They no longer had to work their recording schedule around loud rehearsals by neighboring bands, but were free to create late into the night in uninterrupted seclusion. After three months of searching, Summers and Weikel settled into a 1500-square-foot, former breakroom-cafeteria in an old warehouse. But Summers and drummer-keyboardist, Benjamin Weikel, were lucky: All of their best equipment was either on tour with them, or racked high enough off the studio floor to be spared. Heavy rains had caused the building’s plumbing to overflow like a geyser. Back home in Portland, OR, the band’s studio/practice space was under nearly a foot of water. In 2009, while touring in support of Keep Your Eyes Ahead, singer-guitarist Brandon Summers got an unexpected phone call in the middle of the night. Negotiations' 11 tracks ebb and flow in similar ways to one another, but upon close inspection, the deft placement of nearly hidden sonic details is what makes the album so interesting, and breathes life into the band's already enjoyable soul-searching pop.Negotiations, the fifth full-length album written, recorded, and produced by The Helio Sequence, would sound different had it not been for a flood. The song is a prime example of how the band has deepened its sound even further, adding atmosphere to its already metered pop songs. The lush synth pop of a song like "Silence on Silence" is sprinkled with spacy echoes and warm washes of keyboard bass. ![]() The folk tendencies that filled Keep Your Eyes Ahead are revisited on songs like "December" and expanded on tracks like the completely improvised "Harvester of Souls." The band's experimentation with improvised lyrical forms, synth patches, and warm analog echoes was also enabled by late-night sessions in an isolated environment. Spacious rockers like the title track and "The Measure" are defined by their open, chiming guitar lines and Summers' languid melodies. ![]() Their ability to stretch out in a much larger space (one without anyone else around to come into the band's mental landscape) is reflected in the patient tones and insular approach to almost every song here. Instead of a shared practice space, the duo found an enormous disused industrial space in an otherwise unoccupied building and set about sculpting the songs that make up Negotiations. In the four years between that album and the Helio Sequence's fifth full-length, Negotiations, their practice space/studio flooded while they were on tour, wiping out some of their gear and leaving them in need of a new place to record and create. His bruised voice was reborn in a raspy Waits-meets- Dylan style, which informed the overarching indie folk feel of the band's 2008 breakthrough, Keep Your Eyes Ahead, and brought out its more somber, low-lit moments. Starting off with a focus on ambient soundscapes and buried vocals, the band's experimentation with bringing the vocals to the forefront for its yelpy 2004 album, Love and Distance, resulted in singer Brandon Summers damaging his vocal cords shouting the songs out night after night on tour. Portland, Oregon's dreamy indie folk duo the Helio Sequence have built their discography on a series of somewhat unfortunate but ultimately sound-shaping external circumstances.
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