ARTIST: Umbrellas
TITLE: Illuminare
LABEL: The Militia Group
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 204kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 33m total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-07-25
RIP DATE: 2006-06-30
Track List
----------
1. Boston White 3:33
2. Again and Again 2:58
3. Crooked 2:45
4. Idle and Waiting 3:22
5. Angel or Demon 3:01
6. Thinking of You 3:28
7. Dignified Exit Society 3:43
8. Tests on My Heart 3:42
9. Ships 3:51
10. We Fall 3:02
Release Notes:
Luzern, Switzerland- October 2001. I had a rare opportunity to sit and pick the
brain of the reclusive S. Windsor who is like a professor with wisdom one would
covet, and shares his thoughts with quiet selectivity. We sat, pint in hand, in
a low-lit 300 year-old pub filled with heat from the fireplace and Thursday
night chatter. The mood of the room was warm and inviting yet distant, as if an
empty breeze snuck through the large oak door. (Looking back, those detail
somewhat parallel the music of Umbrellas.) Not much in common to start with,
just two people who spoke the same language. We went over many things but
starting out, I so un-inspiringly asked where the name came from It seems as
though it all came out from there. Sometimes a name is just a name. If you want
a grandiose story of what it all means, here you go. Recording an album in an
old creaking hotel that used to be a mortuary has its ups and downs. There was
so much history you could literally feel. We'd record downstairs in the daytime
and then at night we slept upstairs. All those empty rooms, the draft, the
never-ending treacherous staircase that I constantly dared myself to travel, and
the spiders. I felt as if I was always being followed by spiders that looked
like broken umbrellas. They seemed to map themselves across our minds in the
process of creating the album. And there you have it, your little story. So tell
everyone that's where the name came from. So much of the actual process seems to
have manifested itself in the debut album from Umbrellas. Partly because they
were formed in many different cities, each song gives off different spirit in
its own right. Fittingly, "Ghost" was the first collaborative effort for the
band that would be Umbrellas. Written in Oklahoma with kindred spirits sharing
contrasting ideas, a new feel for the song took shape. Working with friends
served as food for structuring, as the songs changed completely with each
notion. Another song came about in the exact opposite way, showing S. Windsor's
many levels of thought and his diversity in writing. With a bottle of whiskey,
Windsor sat in a room alone and bright in St. Louis. He vividly and candidly
constructed "The Black Dress" in one night. Though the song came together
fantastically, it was then haunted with the absence of the full Umbrellas
collective. With the addition of soulful handclaps in the background and a 70's
guitar/bass conversation between band mates, the song became what it was meant
to be. This track is a blithe, yet grey story of the push and pull between girls
and boys. The music of Umbrellas is honest. The colour and variance that each
member adds to this group is both the reason the band exists, and what keeps the
music moving. Where Windsor's lyrics in a song may be a bit macabre, the music
is easy on the ears with bright and hopeful instrumentation. This wasn't
supposed to happen. Umbrellas were a free-form collaboration between paralleled
souls, and wasn't intended to be a band that will eventually tour and put out
records. This fact in itself tells the tale of the mystery, contrast and echoing
beauty in the writing of the collective known as Umbrellas.