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The Helio Sequence release new album Negotiations on September 10th on CD, LP and digital formats on Sub Pop Records.
Negotiations is the duo’s first album in over four years and the fifth full-length album written, recorded and produced by The Helio Sequence in the face of adversity.
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. Back home in Portland, the band’s studio/practice space was under nearly a foot of water.
Heavy rains had caused the building’s plumbing to overflow like a geyser. 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.
Still, the band needed a new home and they decided to use this opportunity to try something different in a new studio space and soon settled into a 1500-square-foot, former breakroom-cafeteria in an old warehouse.
They no longer had to work their recording schedule around loud rehearsals by neighbouring bands, but were free to create late into the night in uninterrupted seclusion.
Recording Negotiations proved to be the loosest, and most free-form work the duo has ever done.
This collection of shimmering, reverb-heavy songs is a meditation on, among other things, solitude, memory, hope, misgivings, loss, atonement and inner dialogues.
Most of all, it’s a record that serves as a testament to the beauty, blessing, and excitement of a fresh start.
The Helio Sequence European tour – September:
20 UK, London, Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
21 France, Paris, Fleche D’or – Club Folamour
22 Germany, Hamburg, Reeperbahn Festival
24 Germany, Berlin, Comet Club
25 Holland, Amsterdam, Paradiso
26 Germany, Koln, Gebaude9
27 Belgium, Leuven, Stuk
Watch the trailer for Negotiations