Kevin Bronson on March 13th, 2009

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For all the serious tones, goosefleshy emotions and half-whispered meditations on Great Northern’s sophomore album, the title came to songwriters Solon Bixler and Rachel Stolte as they sat in a darkened room brainstorming on that very issue. “I went to find a pen to write some of them down,” Stolte says, “and couldn’t find the light switch.”

“Remind Me Where the Light Is.”

Yeah, that works. Harder-charging and certainly more illuminative that its debut “Trading Twilight for Daylight,” the new album (out April 28 on Eenie Meenie) finds Great Northern adhering to – and, at times, though, falling back on – its sylvan aesthetic. But Bixler and Stolte have for the most part traded their filmy dreams for the daylight of focused introspection.

• ||| Stream: Three tracks from the album on Great Northern’s e-card.

“On the first record we were more abstract, and not as personal with the lyrics,” Stolte says. “Here we just went into some new territory; we were more direct.”

The circumstances probably had something to do with that: The duo acknowledges that setting out to make their sophomore album – especially with the likes of producer Michael Patterson (Beck, BRMC, Puff Daddy) – was like staring into an abyss. “You’re either going to make the same record twice,” Bixler says, “or you’re going to go somewhere.” Adds Stolte: “We were in this totally vulnerable state, and then we go into a studio with people who have amazing rosters …”

Great Northern still juggles the melancholic and the optimistic in its lush arrangements, but “Remind Me” leans distinctly toward the latter, a quality that seemed to emerge in the songwriting. “After we finished touring behind the first record, we bought a minimal set-up for at home,” Bixler says, explaining that the embryonic forms of the new material “were more rhythm-oriented – a drum beat, a piano beat. … In fact, we kept a lot of the sounds from our home studio on the record. So [the songs] ended up being much more driving.

“It seems that even in the most heartbreaking moments there is always hope. I really do think we want everything to be all right.”

||| Live: Great Northern performs Monday at the Silverlake Lounge with O+S [more on them Monday] before heading to Austin for shows at the South by Southwest Music Festival.