Audio By Carbonatix
Who’s your favorite two-piece act? The White Stripes? Mates of State? Local H? Donny and Marie? After this show, it might be the Portland duo Helio Sequence — singer/guitarist/harmonica player Brandon Summers and drummer/keyboardist Benjamin Weikel (late of Modest Mouse, where he spent a year subbing on the skins for the formerly exiled Jeremiah Green). On the duo’s excellent, Sub Pop-released third album, Love and Distance, Summers reveals he’s mostly over his long obsession with My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless — sure, there’s still the odd wobbly, delay-pedaled six-string, but the band’s previous walls of noise have been torn down in favor of an airy, perkily psychedelic junction of squishy electronics, Weikel’s elastic thwaps, and lotsa light ‘n’ whooshy guitar and keyboard melodies. When Summers puts harp to mouth, the resulting jams strangely recall late-era Stone Roses, but the pair’s predominant vibe is that of a Sgt. Pepper-ized Postal Service.
