Start Listening To: Starcleaner Reunion
Starcleaner Reunion on lifelong friendship, homemade instruments, the joy of experimentation and the shared musical history behind debut album Umbrella.
Some bands spend years figuring out how to write together. For Starcleaner Reunion, that process began long before the band officially existed. Having grown up together in New Jersey, the quartet spent their teenage years swapping records, playing in different projects and gradually building the creative shorthand that defines their debut album, Umbrella. Rich with jangling guitars, homemade instruments and playful experimentation, it's a record that feels both meticulously crafted and effortlessly instinctive. We caught up with the band to talk about lifelong friendships, self-producing their first full-length, touring with Blondshell and Bully, and the records that continue to shape the way they hear music.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
Starcleaner Reunion, 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. Some thoughts and images that come to mind: a divider in a record bin that says “space age bubblegum krautrock???”; a 1968 Velvet Underground promo poster depicting the band as crayon doodles, later recreated by Galaxie 500; 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.
Vocalist and tambourine player Jo Roman, guitarists Pat Drummond and Neil Torman, and bassist Adam Kenter 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.
You've all known each other since high school and played together in different projects before this band. How has that shared history shaped the way you write and communicate creatively?
We learned a lot about music together, both in terms of how to work communally in a band setting and in turning each other onto things, especially during the more formative years playing in different musical configurations throughout high school and college. Jo put us on to Stereolab as teenagers and there was this American Analog Set CD that permanently lived in Pat's car in high school, for example. It feels like this all laid a bedrock of comfort, reassuring musical trust in each other and coalescing into a general like-mindedness.
This is your first full-length album after two EPs. Did making a record change the way you approached songwriting, or did it simply give you more space to explore ideas?
EPs have felt like a sort of get in-get out operation where we didn't feel like we had a whole lot of room to venture. This was the first time we felt we had the space to experiment and create more adventurous tracks that have their own feeling and sonic diversity.
The album is impressively self-produced and even features homemade instruments like the aluminium cello. Was there a point where experimenting with unusual sounds became part of the band's identity, or did it happen naturally during these sessions?
We've always admired "weird" sounds and the element of surprise and unconventional texture. The aluminum cello was actually something we didn't know existed, it's an instrument our friend Talullah Calderwood built herself. We had an idea for a sort of metal sheet sound in a track, more like a sound effect, but when we heard what she does we found it so special that the idea evolved into incorporating that instead.
'Never Odd or Even' explores the moment a secret leaves the safety of someone's mind. What drew you to that idea, and why did it feel like the right introduction to the album?
A majority of the content of these songs relate to Jo’s personal experiences and dreams. While some of the songs on the LP are derived from prose and stream of consciousness, “Never Odd Or Even” references an interplay of Jo’s memories.
You've cited everything from Brazilian psych and C86 jangle to '90s noise as influences, but the end result feels very much your own. How conscious are you of your influences when you're writing, and when do you know a song has become unmistakably Starcleaner Reunion?
I wouldn't say we think referentially, the primary drive comes from playing around either individually or together until something feels good, it's like a radar - you're messing around until you say "wait, what was that?" and try to catch it. We just like a lot of music, influences are in constant flux and they'll come out subconsciously, naturally. Everything inherently comes from something, I think the key in any art form is just appreciating a broad palette, because it'll all swirl around in your brain and come out at different times in your own way.
After touring so extensively following Café Life, what did playing those songs night after night teach you before you started work on Umbrella?
What's funny is up until recently, we've been notoriously naughty with immediately performing songs we had just wrote - sometimes we'd play songs we had just worked out the day before, like 24 hours between writing and performance. So, we had been playing most of the songs on Umbrella during and even before the Cafe Life period. But this was sort of a nice trial by fire in that we could know instantly what did and didn't feel good or needed to be adjusted.
You invited friends to contribute clarinet, horns and violin across the record. How do you decide when a song needs another voice in the room instead of keeping it within the four of you?
It's usually just something we hear in our heads for a particular track, some of which we could play ourselves. As we went through the phases of recording our songs for Umbrella, we would put down MIDI examples of things (horns, brass, vibraphone) we wanted to hear, and sourced friends who could bring it to life for us.
The name Starcleaner Reunion comes from a children's book about magical beings returning light to the sky. Does that idea still resonate with the band today, or has the name taken on a completely different meaning over the years?
It was really just coming across the cover and title of the book that sort of instantly struck us as interesting and a good band name more than any deeper meaning related to the context. But, of course we've read the whole thing after the fact and it's a completely beautiful work of its own.
You'll be taking these songs on the road with Blondshell and Bully later this year. Which tracks from Umbrella are you most excited to finally play in front of people, and why?
We've been playing the bulk of the tracks for years now, but I'm excited to maybe figure out how to play some of the more experimental tracks live, Pasillo Piso, Weather Instrument and Lay on Plastic Moment would be really fun to play. These songs are a bit trickier to replicate live, so we’re thinking of incorporating a sampler into the set to fill them out a bit.
What do you love right now?
Jo: I’ve made a fennel olive oil semolina cake three times in the past month because it is so good, and Brebirousse d’Argental cheese.
Neil: Got a cd/tape player for the kitchen which has me hanging out in there more and listening to physical music more regularly
Adam: I’ve been enjoying drinking miso soup out of a mug and looney tunes rust bro.
Pat: Anchovy pizza, long books, diving off a big rock.
What do you hate right now?
Jo: Random bursts of super heavy rain and itchy fabrics
Neil: Sweating, seeing dogs without boots on the city streets
Adam: Mealy fruit and snapping the lead on my mechanical pencil
Pat: Clutter, fennel, spotify.
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?
Jo: “Oscillons of the Anti-Sun” by Stereolab. I stumbled across a music video of one of the songs, Fluorescenses, on YouTube when I was in middle school. I had an obsession with old computers and their hardware designs, and my parents helped me with my hobby collecting old hardware. I think from searching for computer-related things, this music video came up, which featured singer Mary Hansen on the screen of a Commodore. At least I’d like to think that this search inquiry blessed me with this video. I was obsessed with the backing vocals of Mary Hansen the most. I remember ordering the compilation CD with allowance money on eBay. I immediately put a sticker from the CD compilation on my childhood windowpane and it’s still there to this day.
Neil: "Lesser Matters" by the Radio Dept. I stumbled across it when I was 16 and it blew me away - it was my first introduction to anything in the realm of lo-fi/noise/indie etc. and kind of opened the door to the music I resonate most with to this day. No one had ever exposed me to anything other than classic rock or pop punk prior to this discovery, so it was a total game changer.
Adam: I think “Offend Maggie” by Deerhoof was the first modern alternative record that I really fell in love with. They’re still one of my favorite bands.
Pat: “Person Pitch” by Panda Bear. I’ve recently been listening to a lot of music from that era and it’s so bold and experimental while still being fun and joyful. He made the entire record with nothing but two SP303 samplers, which is inspiring in how powerful it can be to work within limitations and take a slower process when making music.
Finally, with your debut album about to arrive and more people discovering the band than ever before, what do you hope listeners take away after spending time with Umbrella?
This album was pure indulgence, we want people to enjoy it the same way we do. Explore the music and leave with a more in depth understanding of every-day life.
