{"product_id":"starcleaner-reunion-umbrella","title":"Starcleaner Reunion - Umbrella","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eUmbrella\u003c\/em\u003e, the debut album by \u003cstrong\u003eStarcleaner Reunion\u003c\/strong\u003e, is retro-futurist pop music made by four 20-somethings raised in the shadows of a big city. Accordingly, there’s a sweet scrappiness to their songs, patchwork quilts of baroque textures like chugging guitars, glitchy electronica, and musique concrète sampling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome thoughts and images that come to mind: a divider in a record bin that says “space age bubblegum krautrock???”; a 1968 \u003cstrong\u003eVelvet Underground\u003c\/strong\u003e promo poster depicting the band as crayon doodles, later recreated by \u003cstrong\u003eGalaxie 500\u003c\/strong\u003e; The ‘Life Is Good’ guy lounging in a warm pool of sunlight, favorite song playing on the radio, spliff in hand. Maybe he’s wearing a beret, there’s something Francophone happening here, too.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVocalist and tambourine player \u003cstrong\u003eJo Roman\u003c\/strong\u003e, guitarists \u003cstrong\u003ePat Drummond\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eNeil Torman\u003c\/strong\u003e, and bassist \u003cstrong\u003eAdam Kenter\u003c\/strong\u003e grew up in the same small town of Springfield, New Jersey. After meeting in high school, they played together in various configurations, bonding over a collective love for Brazilian psych, C86 jangle, and’90s noise. It was only in 2022, after Drummond moved to New York from Montreal, that the friends solidified into something beyond swapping song links over text.“We call it a supergroup,” jokes Torman.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey chose the name Starcleaner Reunion after a 1970s children's book about magical beings that return light to the sky. They recorded their first EP, 2023’s \u003cem\u003eClub Estrella\u003c\/em\u003e, quickly, with barely a thought for production. There’s an innocence to these early, kaleidoscopic bursts of alt-rock, but also an instinctual familiarity, “which goes back to how long we've all known each other and played together,” Torman says.“It's always very natural.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter that initial effort, Starcleaner Reunion “learned a lot more about how to make the music sound like it does in our heads,” says Drummond. “How to connect the dots between how we want it to feel and how to make it actually sound that way.” They approached their next EP, 2024’s \u003cem\u003eCafé Life\u003c\/em\u003e, with the intention of expanding the band’s universe. Ironically, they discovered that in order to grow, they needed to backtrack to the place where it all began, the converted carport of Kenter’s childhood home.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStarcleaner Reunion performed live tirelessly after \u003cem\u003eCafé Life\u003c\/em\u003e, fine-tuning their material along the way. In the summer of 2025, after completing their biggest tour to date, the bandmates hunkered down in Kenter’s garage studio. Surrounded by tour souvenirs—stockpiles of gear purchased off Facebook marketplace—familiar songs unspooled in radically new directions. “This is maybe the first time where we were writing without any self-imposed limitations regarding how we’d translate the songs live,” Torman says, describing how tracks were chopped, warped, and reversed. “\u003cem\u003eEating the Alphabet\u003c\/em\u003e” evolved into banjo-tinged dream pop, while “\u003cem\u003eBrittle on My Finger\u003c\/em\u003e” is skittery and woozy, all decaying flowers and “metallic waste in the attic digital memory.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eUmbrella\u003c\/em\u003e, self-produced once again, is Starcleaner Reunion’s most expansive and ambitious project yet, blending together poetic abstraction, recombinant collage, and sonic craftsmanship. It begins with “\u003cem\u003eTheme\u003c\/em\u003e,” a hypnotic, modular nursery rhyme. This time around, the instrumentation is more varied, as the band invited friends to add embellishments, which led to sprinklings of clarinet, horns, and violin, the latter courtesy of mixer \u003cstrong\u003eRuben Radlauer\u003c\/strong\u003e’s (\u003cstrong\u003eModel-Actriz\u003c\/strong\u003e) father. They never did manage to get a hold of a proper harpsichord…Swerving n and out of time signatures, the grooving “\u003cem\u003eNever Odd nor Even\u003c\/em\u003e” concludes with a ghostly sonar courtesy of an instrument of a friend’s “aluminum cello” made from a single string, a sheet of metal, and a contact pickup.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese 11 songs are tied together by Roman’s entrancing vocals and visual prose, fragments of fleeting thoughts, memories, and observations. Her phrases tend toward abstraction, but themes of longing, obfuscation, and indecision emerge on tracks like “\u003cem\u003eMaschine Mockup\u003c\/em\u003e” and the Spanish-language “\u003cem\u003ePasillo Piso\u003c\/em\u003e.” On the vaguely ominous “\u003cem\u003eTea Drops Park\u003c\/em\u003e,” she describes a curdled vision of domesticity with a cool remove. “\u003cem\u003eWeather Instrument\u003c\/em\u003e,” which features \u003cstrong\u003eGary Olson\u003c\/strong\u003e of \u003cstrong\u003eThe Ladybug Transistor\u003c\/strong\u003e on trumpet, is a dazzling burst of sunshine, albeit one about yearning for something just out of focus. The lush closing track, “\u003cem\u003eLay on Plastic Moment\u003c\/em\u003e,”recalls an uncanny familiarity, a déjà vu daydream: “Greater at night, passing\/Phase through the alleyways\/Hoping I’ll find, something. On \u003cem\u003eUmbrella\u003c\/em\u003e, Starcleaner Reunion grab ahold of that “something” and look towards the future.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TAKE CARE RECORDS","offers":[{"title":"Clear \u0026 Black w Purple Splatter LP","offer_id":59340089426265,"sku":"SDZ-52023","price":34.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":59340089459033,"sku":"SDZ-52024","price":31.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0588\/3455\/0945\/files\/REP_20260908_1654_155541_075_p_STARCLEANER_REUNION_UMBRELLA_compressed_1_001.jpg?v=1788883749","url":"https:\/\/spindizzyrecords.com\/products\/starcleaner-reunion-umbrella","provider":"Spindizzy Dublin","version":"1.0","type":"link"}