HIGH PLACES are two in number. Mary Pearson and Rob Barber, both Brooklyn dwellers, create a unique and joyous union of world beat, dance music and underground pop with High Places. Standing atop the summit of a towering mountain certainly provides a great perspective but it's the overpowering feeling of awesome majesty that is key to understanding the band. That sense of grandeur and wonder is almost impossible to tether in words yet their music seems dizzy under its influence.

High Places are all about exultation, positivity and light-headed charm. Sounding like the dreamy and sincere vocalisations of K Records groups plunged into the tropical electronics of the fertile US underground. Swirling twitchy psychedelic beat patterns into inventive and verdant exotica, High Places do not sound like your usual New York band, but scratch the surface and their heavy syncopation and free-wheeling approach to melody sounds like a city alive in daydream.

Rob and Mary draw inspiration from returning to the basics of sound, like its pitch, position, speed and presence. This template for experimentation allows the band to build otherworldly polyrhythmic miniatures from small drums, bells and shakers, clouded by blankets of echo and reverb. Their most thunderous heart-thumping impulses are juxtaposed with a spacious (almost peaceful) atmosphere. Rob's percussion sounds chime and flutter around Mary's sweetly honest vocal, layered to the point that her lyrics often become as veiled and hypnotic as the other instruments.

'HIGH PLACES'

From Stardust to Sentience

UTR025 | LP | 10 tracks, 34 mins | 29 Sept 2008 | Buy

High Places' highly-anticipated, self-titled debut album was recorded by Rob and Mary in their apartment in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood between January and May of 2008.

They employed a wide variety of instruments to make this album ranging from the more traditional - 12 string guitar, banjo, shakers and rattles, bass, bells and Kalimba - to the inventive - plastic bags, mixing bowls, wood blocks and other common household objects.

The album has a contemplative and organic lyrical tone emphasised by the themes of goodness manifested in nature, hardship and wonder as necessities to human existence and growth. Additionally, the idea of maturation and development is further accented through the recurring mention of trees and their extending, enveloping branches.

Rob created the 'High Places' artwork from photos taken by both band members. The images are drawn from nature but all have a subtle, mystical, "golden" motif - a fitting frame of reference for the album's recurring themes. This can best be summed up by the words to "Gold Coin" - a song that was inspired by Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet'...

"The ocean is your god-self
The sun is your god-self
God as air
Part of you is man
Part of you is god-self
The rest is just stumbling in the mist"

'VISION'S THE FIRST... / NAMER'

Vision's the First... (excerpt)

UTR018 | 7" | 2 tracks, 7 mins | 23 Jun 2007 | Buy

A-side 'Vision's the First...' is an expansive and playful track showing High Places develop their songs into a more complete work where tribal gamelan-clang rhythms punctuate the breezy data shimmer of their chiming ambience and echoing forest sound. The song unfolds in a reflective manner much like Mary's hyper melodic lyric on creativity and sharing secrets.

'Namer' is a track about leaving home, finding comfort through familiarity and identity. Mary's vocal is hushed but clear as it ventures through the dance of bubbling and vibrant nature sounds, leaving the freaky panning drums to swell and pulse like the sea on a full moon.

High Places have previously self-released three limited 7"s (now long gone) and with this new single for Upset The Rhythm the band are readying themselves for their debut album to be released in September, via Thrill Jockey and Upset The Rhythm.