stellastar* 'Harmonies for the Haunted' album

On an unseasonably chilly spring evening in May, stellastarr* took the stage at New York’s Luna Lounge for a secret show to launch the second chapter of its existence. The location was no accident – Luna Lounge was where the band had played its first show years before. Insulated by the warmth of family, friends, and more than a few intuitive fans, the foursome took some collective deep breaths and calmly pulled the wraps off Harmonies for the Haunted, its sophomore release. A solitary piano trickled from the sound system, the rhythm section slid into a lilting, midtempo, tambourine-led shuffle, and guitars pierced through the anxious tension, launching a new era for stellastarr* with a song appropriately titled “Lost in Time.”

A year prior to that night, the band was in need of a break. While supporting their acclaimed 2003 debut record, stellastarr* embarked on a rigorous touring cycle, crisscrossing the States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Japan, selling out venues as a headlining act, and serving as hand-picked support for bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, Placebo, and Iggy & the Stooges. stellastarr* was making its mark on a global scale, and coming into its own every night out on stage, each member discovering a singular fit into the band’s chemistry. But by tour’s end, tens of thousands of miles accumulated and the band yearned for home, personal space, and the sheer joy of waking in the same bed each morning. “It was a long road,” says singer/guitarist Shawn Christensen. “A year and a half of touring left me creatively stifled, and I needed rest.” Returning to New York, the band took hiatus, recouped, regathered, and began stretching the canvases for their next endeavor.

stellastarr*s roots sprouted in a bedroom rehearsal space in downtown Brooklyn, the strong right arm of New York City. With backgrounds in painting, acting, film, music, and graphic design, stellastarr* originated out of a spirit of artistic experimentation. The band’s angular take on performance, musical direction, and aesthetics helped them win the adoration of a sizeable fan-base in the five boroughs, and in wider areas of the Northeast. While committing these initial expressions to record, the band endured a learning curve during the recording process, which went down on a shoestring budget, in multiple studios, and spanned almost a year of their lives. All the while, the band never ceased in both growing and refining the stellastarr* table of elements. The result was a culmination of their strengths to date, the sum of the equation. Accordingly, their first album was simply entitled stellastarr*.

As cause and effect to this experience, the band decided their next effort would be different, more unified. Harmonies for the Haunted would feel like one moment in time, and the array of emotions that can occur within that moment. In late 2004, as fall was unfolding into winter, the band reconvened in a frigid, isolated studio space in Brooklyn. There, the members of stellastarr* dug in, bundled up, and began to reconsider everything about their songwriting process, about the ways in which they interact as artists. They wanted a more cohesive sounding album, one packed with tunes sharing some thematic lineage, both musically and lyrically, and they finally had the uninterrupted stretch of time to make that possible. Sonically, some might point to “In The Walls,” the opening track of stellastarr*s debut, as a sneak preview of what was to come. “‘In the Walls’ was the last track we recorded for the first record,” says Christensen. “We decided that was the direction we’d like to go, notwithstanding the idea that, at least in my head, I wanted things to be a little more spacious.” More specifically, says drummer Arthur Kremer, “We wanted to capture mass and sheer size.”

As rehearsals continued and temperatures dropped, the essential elements of Harmonies were being forged. First and foremost, the band decided to basically write a record from scratch. This ideology even went as far as to sidestep some songs written on the road over the past two years that had become recognizable and anticipated fixtures in the band’s live set. “It always came down to what’s better for the album,” says guitarist, Michael Jurin. “This album was all about the song, and what’s best for each song, egos aside,” adds bassist/vocalist Amanda Tannen. “We all had our hands mixed deeply in every decision.” After meeting with multiple producers, they decided on David Schiffman, who was a perfect fit. David understood the band’s dynamic, was interested in fleshing out backing vocals -- always a key component of the stellastarr* sound -- and found innovative ways to capture Shawn’s stirring vocals. He would also help the band discover a different approach to recording drum sounds that would bring the momentum and vastness of the songs to a new level.

Listeners will find different points of entry than they did with the brash, punk-inspired thrashers on the band’s debut like “No Weather,” “Jenny,” or “Pulp Song.” Says Christensen: “We wanted to sustain finesse, and not always be so over the top, even on the fast songs. The idea for this record was to make some songs fast and atmospheric at the same time.” Accordingly, the band fueled new songs like “Sweet Troubled Soul” with cleaner, biting, and direct guitar lines, and embellished “Damn This Foolish Heart” and “Love & Longing” with sequenced synthesizer elements that deftly amplify each track’s surging, inherent beauty. Harmonies also explores more dynamic territories, crafting a darker, lonely ambiance on tracks like “When I Disappear” and “Island Lost At Sea.” Kremer muses, “Some of the stuff Michael came up with is just unreal, and Shawn’s lyrics, even on poppier songs like ‘Born in a Fleamarket,’ are really intense.” Michael agrees, “I think Shawn’s lyrics evolved into this slivered vision that runs through the songs, the disappointment about things crumbling and falling apart.”

While the record certainly explores areas of fragility, both aural and emotional, the relationships between Shawn, Michael, Amanda, and Arthur have certainly endured, although in different ways. “Our group dynamic has totally changed,” says Tannen. “We had to go from people who get together and write music outside of our daily lives to a situation where every second of the day is spent on the band.” Says Jurin, “It’s tough for a band to take a stab at redefinition. I honestly have no idea how we lived through a lot of it. The only constant was that we just continued to push forward in whatever ways possible.”

On this latest push forward, it’s clear that stellastarr* is a far more developed entity than the initial innovative collaboration between four art-schoolers. A grandiose, limitless expression emerged in those cold rehearsal sessions in Brooklyn, one that is bound to leave fans -- both the steadfast ones and the newly-arriving -- awestruck, engrossed, and lost in time.

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stellastar* - Harmonies for the Haunted