Search - Umbrellas :: Illuminare

UMBRELLAS? ILLUMINARE
(Latin; meaning to light the way or illustrate.)

When Umbrellas? debut hit the shelves, it was recognized as a dynamic, eager offering. The band toured heavily and new ideas began swimming inside Scott Windsor?s head. Those ideas formed icebergs?and the only option was to dismantle and re-conduct the near-avalanche of visions, abstractions, melodies and structures. Hanging blankets as sound control across the empty, dusty and evocative shell of an old comedy club, Scott and his Umbrellas started tracking their new record Illuminare. They went forth in unsafe, less-than secure scenarios with nearby ?06 tornados in Oklahoma.

James McAlister (Ester Drang, Sufjan Stevens) played the drums, percussion, programming, and added lively, innovative ideas like sampling Scott?s voice as the keyboard parts for the song "Again and Again". Most of these songs only had one take on vocals?around 80% of the record. Illuminare grapples with notions of solitude, life, death, and the plain old blues. Scott sings of realistic love, infatuation, satisfaction, disappointment, life-balance, the letting-go, appeasement, idealism, and grace?all with a backdrop of blustery fall-out tunes with strange swirls of sound, smatterings of echoes and pulsings, huge bass hammerings and bells to chime the gladness in being right there where one?s supposed to be. Weathering the storms, and taking on the shadows and memories of calmer times and warmer rooms.