The Helio Sequence

The Portland-based duo Helio Sequence features vocalist and guitarist Brandon Summers alongside keyboardist and drummer Benjamin Weikel. The pair arrived in 1999 with an ambient and psychedelic approach that balanced guitar textures equally against Summers’ muted vocals, first issuing the Accelerated Slow-Motion Cinema EP and then the full-length Com Plex in 2000. Their entirely home-studio process encouraged extensive sonic experimentation, which shaped the swirling layers of an evolving style that, when grounded, landed somewhere among My Bloody Valentine, Mouse on Mars, and the more eccentric wing of the Elephant 6 collective. Young Effectuals appeared in 2001, after which the group moved from Cavity Search Records to Sub Pop and delivered the more prominent Love and Distance in June 2004. That release elevated Summers’ vocals to an unprecedented degree, yet throat strain cut the ensuing tour short; he returned to Portland with severe vocal damage and rebuilt his technique through targeted exercises and lifestyle adjustments. Drawing inspiration from Bob Dylan, Summers gradually recovered, allowing the Helio Sequence to reemerge in 2008 with Keep Your Eyes Ahead.

While touring behind that album, the pair’s rented studio and practice space flooded, destroying equipment and forcing them to seek new quarters. A remote, disused warehouse supplied the isolation needed for further experimentation, and the results guided the patient, languid character of 2012’s Negotiations. In 2013, Summers and Weikel took on production duties for outside acts for the first time, handling a Brazilian group called Quarto Negro, delivering remixes for the adventurous hip-hop outfit Shabazz Palaces, and mixing several Portland-based projects. The following year, fellow Portland musicians introduced “the 20 Song Game,” a challenge to write twenty new songs in one day. Although the duo fell short, the exercise spurred them to compose the maximum number of tracks possible within a month; they generated twenty-six pieces, selected ten, refined them, and assembled the results into their self-titled sixth album, issued by Sub Pop in May 2015.