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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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The Umbrella Sequence: High anxiety
Wednesday 09 May @ 11:54:38 |
 by ROB VAN ALSTYNE
Renowned literary critic Harold Bloom is arguably best known for his 1973 tome, "The Anxiety of Influence," whose central theory posits that all poets are hindered in their creative process by the ambiguous relationship they necessarily maintain with precursor poets. What holds true for anyone who's ever picked up a pen and attempted to dash off some witty couplets, seems doubly so for anyone foolhardy enough to grab a guitar and attempt to write a pop song. The bottom line is that no one lives in a cultural vacuum and anybody enough in love with rock 'n' roll to want to take a stab at making some of it themselves will likely bear the stamp of those who inspired them (for better or worse). It's an issue Ryan Ruprecht and his band, The Umbrella Sequence, are well aware of: given Ruprecht's airy tenor and his band's penchant for taut space-rock, the band has been barraged with Radiohead comparisons since its inception in 2002.
"I guess I don't view the whole Radiohead issue as a dilemma anymore," says vocalist/keyboardist Ruprecht. "I think I used to a little bit more. But I mean growing up in the '90s that was the biggest thing around other than the Smashing Pumpkins; I didn't really have a choice but to hear that stuff, and you know, Radiohead are a good band. I totally agree that our first record had some kind of key 'Radiohead' type moments on it, and I couldn't help but to be influenced by them. I don't really feel that way at all about our new record. If anyone still wants to make that comparison the only reason is because of the past and the fact that I'm a tenor."
Rupprecht is dead on: The Umbrella Sequence who have re-emerged with sophomore full length Events bears little resemblance to the young group of Yorke-ian acolytes behind 2003 debut album Sparkler Cliché. Part of the shift is a simple matter of personnel. Both drummer Aaron Hagebak and guitarist Nick Sander exited the group in the years between albums, and part of it was simply a matter of natural evolution. For whatever reasons, the band that previously favored bleep-blip heavy obfuscation and a tendency toward the grandiose (Sparkler Cliché clocked in at a whopping 53 minutes) have turned fighting lean and found their way with a pop hook (Events flits by in an easily-digestible 34 minutes).
The indie-pop proceedings are still plenty layered, with a bevy of varied keyboard textures and shifting rhythms the norm, but guitarist Jacob Swogger's axe also takes a more prominent role, shredding with abandon on cuts like track "Et Tu Forte?" and "Elephant," and the band think nothing of lacing their decidedly non-bucolic tunes with eerie dollops of pedal steel or precisely placed horns and acoustic guitar strums. The result is an alluring hybrid of organic and mechanical pop maneuvers a long ways removed from its icier predecessor.
"We're very influenced by each other," says Rupprecht. "Jake, our guitar player, started pushing all this pop bullshit on me, and at first I was really leery of it, but as I worked on it and wrote my parts to it I really started to like it, and we kind of gradually started moving more in that direction. It was something completely new to me; I didn't even think pop existed. The way I dealt with the transition was kind of thinking, oh well these are just sort of B-sides we're working on and they probably won't even end up on the record. And then of course they all ended up being on there in the end."
 The opening lightly ringing bells and insistently grooving bass line of "Urban Lull (At Once Charmed)" are about as pop as indie-rock gets, but the band still betrays signs they're not going to keep things too strait-laced as they insist on sporadic injections of keyboard that sound like laser blasts. The follow-up number, "This Time We're Positive," is a compelling rumination on resilience in the face of apathy ("No more feeling as if we're tadpoles in a fish bowl") that consists largely of Rupprecht's multi-tracked vocals and a pulsating minimalist keyboard figure with an underpinning of ambient electronic sounds and the occasional appearance of a luminous piano line. It's macabre pop of the highest order. The tug of war between more buoyant and aggressive pop songs and meditative balladry continues throughout the rest of Events, resulting in an album with tracks perfectly suited for starting your day ("Bus 12" will bring a smile to the face of anyone who commutes to work courtesy of Metro Transit) or winding it down (the lullaby for adults, "Need to Make Lists," is the sort of mood music ideally consumed in contemplative darkness).
Although The Umbrella Sequence have been a well known quantity on the local scene for four years know, Events is the kind of startlingly bold album that feels like it should expand the group's notoriety far beyond Minnesota, and one thing's for sure: Rupprecht will be sweating out every step of the way. "I've been biting my fingernails constantly these last few weeks just waiting for it to come out," admits Rupprecht of his excitement surrounding the release of Events. "I think once you've been around on the scene for a few years, some people do get a little callous about things like making records, putting them out, but not me personally. I'm still extremely excited to be in a band pretty much every day. I'm interested in how people will react to the new record. I feel like it's a world apart from where we were in 2002. I'm just one big ball of nerves anyway. I get anxious about eating. I'm a nervous guy all around." ||
The Umbrella Sequence plays the CD release show for Events on Fri., May 11 at the 400 Bar with These Modern Socks and The Nina! The Pinta! 9 p.m. $5 adv/ $7 door. 18+. 400 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. 612-332-2903. For more information on The Umbrella Sequence check out their official website at theumbrellasequence.com.
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