The two would put a loop on and improvise together with Summers on guitar and Weikel on drums, recording one take of each jam. 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, the fifth full-length album written, recorded, and produced by The Helio Sequence, would sound different had it not been for a flood.
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