The members of The Helio Sequence are admittedly studio rats.
The endless tinkering, experimenting and editing have produced some of the band's most engrossing work, but after 15 years in that mode, they wanted fewer constraints.
For their recent self-titled release, the Beaverton, Oregon, based duo damned the torpedoes, recording an album using a "game" to stay in the moment, creating a record with more immediacy and absolutely no second-guessing.
"We knew going in, we wanted to record much more quickly and that was the impetus," singer/guitarist Brandon Summers said. "We have a tendency to disappear down a rabbit hole and emerge a year and a half later with a record."
Friends in Portland introduced Summers and drummer/keyboardist Benjamin Weikel to the "20-Song Game."
The game involves the musicians separately going into studios and hastily recording 20 songs over the course of a day. They'd meet later that night for a party, listening to the results of the sessions and reviewing the process, which was sometimes rewarding, sometimes frustrating, but inevitably enlightening.
"This was a way to put a fire under ourselves," Summers said. "We thought we'd try a one-day thing. We were actually getting our studio set up (for a longer process). It felt so natural, we decided we were going to play this elongated version and give ourselves a month."
As much as anything, Summers said the game allowed the duo to continue to move forward without looking back.
"When you own your own studio, you tend to do a lot of reflection in the middle of the process," he said. "We let every idea go because we had so many things, you could set one aside and work on something else. It was all about momentum, really."
Often during the month, they operated like factory workers on split shifts, with Summers and Weikel passing each other in the studio.
"It was an incredibly intense month," Summers said. "I would get to the studio and work from 9 to 5 and he would come in and work overnight."
Summers said the album and process were, in part, a response to "Negotiations," the group's dusky fifth album released in 2012.
"It was a very introspective and time-consuming process," he said. "Every album requires something different. We had to be introspective and careful with those songs. This was different. We had to roll with the momentum of it."
By the end of May, that momentum had produced 26 completed tracks. Instead of whittling them down to an album themselves, they sent the tracks to 31 friends and family members, asking them each to rank their 10 favorite songs.
"It was very liberating to let ourselves give these songs out before they were finished," Summers said. "We always held everything so close. The studio can be very insular. This was an open process. The top 10 that were voted were the 10 on the record. A couple of songs Benjamin and I loved the most didn't end up on the album."
Many of those songs showed up on an 11-song companion record titled "The Sunrise Demos."
"It gives people a chance to hear the rough cuts exactly like the ones that we gave out to our friends," Summers said.
Although The Helio Sequence may sound like a development of a new sound, Summers says it's really more of a reflection of his and Weikel's personal musical tastes and interests.
When the band broke on the scene with three straight albums from 1999-2001, the inspiration came from Europe, with German and English rock and pop.
After Summers lost his voice for a stretch in 2006, he returned slowly and was drawn to folk music and the songs of Bob Dylan. That sculpted the sound of "Keep Your Eyes Ahead," in 2008, the band's second release on famed Pacific Northwest indie label Sub Pop Records.
"I think from the outside you would hear an evolution, but that's only because at the core, The Helio Sequence is about Benjamin and I as people. What we're listening to and what inspires us," he said. "Our sound is always a reflection of what we love. We're music listeners and music lovers."
With a pair of Alaska shows, Summers said the duo is able to cross off one of four states in which they have never before played. Only Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island still remain.
The new album also offered Summers and Weikel and opportunity to refresh their more-than-15-year relationship as bandmates.
"We've got to know each other well enough as best friends and musical collaborators, the difficulty would be like any other relationships, patterns or tendencies," Summers said. "That's part of why we did this game, to leave that stuff behind. I think one of the amazing things about learning a song is that it can come from so many different things. You know each other so well, you take these seeds that the other one plants and help it grow."
After their Alaska stop, the band is headed to a handful of South America dates as well as an opening slot for indie darlings Death Cab For Cutie.
The Helio Sequence
Friday, 10:15 p.m., with Alex The Lion (8:30-9:30 p.m.) and opener Dutchess (9:30-10:15 p.m.)
Saturday, 10:15 p.m., with Alex The Lion (8:30-9:30 p.m.) and opener Hazia (9:30-10:15 p.m.)
Where: Tap Root Public House
Tickets: $20 each night or $35 for both shows