High Places

By WILL L. FLETCHER

CONTRIBUTING WRITER



We’ve all heard those little ambient noise machines that pump out “nature sounds” all night and really don’t help anyone sleep. But instead of just smashing the thing, Brooklyn duo High Places have found an actual use for one.

On their self-titled debut album, High Places layer cross-cultural melodies over naturalistic soundscapes (think rainforest) with surprising success. At first, it may sound like a mess—discombobulated, slapdash, and just plain weird. But High Places aren’t just some randoms who decided to combine their love of global ethnic music with their snoozing troubles. Behind the ambience and space, the music is actually quite complex and sophisticated, especially given the band’s make-up: a duo of a multi-instrumentalist (Rob Barber) and a singer (Mary Pearson).

From the very first song, “The Storm,” the band delves into its diverse musical lexicon with a melody reminiscent of traditional Indian folk music. Unfortunately, in the case of this particular track, Pearson’s nursery-rhyme lyrics and vocals don’t quite match the intricacies of the rhythms and instrumentation created by Barber. Despite the juvenile writing, the song is still infectious due to its primitive and up-tempo drumming, and it’s a suitable welcome to the journey that is “High Places.”

As the album continues, “High Places” evolves to become more electronic. The sound is difficult to describe or, for that matter, to imagine—it sounds a bit like laid-back trance music colorfully drenched with hypnotic vocals and influences from countless other styles, from Middle-eastern to Reggae. In other words, if Kimya Dawson or the Juliana Hatfield Three were to turn electronic, it is likely High Places would be the result.

Between the Pearson vocal tracks, there are various instrumental interludes that feature Barber’s talents and facilitate the album’s flow. While these are merely short breaks, the instrumentals in and of themselves are mystical and magical, but also crucial, for they create much of the mood and ambience. Barber’s use of loops and syncopated rhythms covers everything from the sounds of the tribal and primordial to the modern and futuristic. The sixth track alone takes the listener on an excursion from the calm landscape to the midnight jungle, offering a perfect transition into the seventh track “Namer.”

On eighth track “Golden,” the overall sound lends itself more to that of the traditional music of China, with the pentatonic motifs and Chinese instrumentation. The album’s closer, “From Stardust to Sentience,” wraps up the story nicely. Lyrically, this song is by far the most profound, yet at the same time the most gratifying. Pearson sings: “Millions of forces of physics and providence / Teamed up and brought us all here / Waking and sleeping and yielding to gravity / Pointless to measure in years / Out in the desert your thoughts are clear as the stars / You feel Golden.”

Quite the opposite of the ambient noise makers, High Places take what could be sleepytime melodies and turn them into something creative and entertaining. Sure, it may be a bit strange, but if you’re up for trying out something new, or messing with your new roommates when they try to go to bed (I’m looking at you, freshmen), it might be just the thing you’re after.