High Places exist within a realm of experimental sounds. Repetitive samples, home-crafted percussion, and minimalist vocals imbue their sparse electronica-pulsating world. The outcome feels both foreign and warm. Mary Pearson and Rob Barber have together created a unique sound steeped in soft, wispy female vocal melodies, brisk beats, and rhythmic lines produced on folk percussion and household objects. It is music inspired by beauty and nature, whose artistry leans towards organic resonances. The subtlety of their music whispers images, allowing the listener to fill the landscapes with their own contemplations. This association might bring to mind the amorphous, dream-inspiring work of Animal Collective’s Panda Bear.

Live, the two create layered recordings with Pearson manipulating her vocals with delay and reverb, playing hand percussion, and creating and controlling various loops. Barber triggers percussive sounds from his drum pads, adds ambient vocals, and plays an array of rhythmic instruments to create the certain tone that is High Places. The songwriting is expansive and fluid, while the musical ideas produced are concise. A state of meditation is encouraged by their creations and this seems apt as Barber has been on record saying that music is pretty much the only thing that calms him down and enables him to relax.

High Places’ self-titled debut was recorded in Pearson and Barber’s Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood apartment in Brooklyn in 2008. And the music has that true, artsy Brooklyn feel. The two met in 2006, when Pearson was living in Michigan and both were pursuing solo projects. Once she moved to New York, they began collaborating, exchanging ideas and giving each other little bits to work off of and respond to. Their unexpected first performance came in May of 2006, when Rob was offered a gig that he didn’t want to play alone. A demo and U.S. tour dates came soon after. In 2008, the group signed with Thrill Jockey Records to release their debut and, shortly thereafter, a collection of singles under the title 03/07-09/07.

mp3: High Places – Cosmonaut – High Places EP (2007)
mp3: High Places – A Field Guide 1 – High Places (2008)

The band’s most recent record, High Places vs. Mankind (March 2010), offers a new era of the band’s experimental pop. It takes their music to a more densely atmospheric place with slow dance-heavy grooves. The sound is more mature, more complex, with Pearson’s voice more prominently set against High Places’ thick psychedelic landscapes.

The recently transplanted from Brooklyn to Los Angeles where they frequent the mountain-filled parks that now surround them. The pair’s name actually refers to a place where one has a better vantage point and can gain broader perspectives, so this spot seems apt. Their music tends to speak of their love of mountains, rooftops, and other metaphorically high places. Yet the sounds of the city aren’t far away, which likely prompt the ever-present looping of industrial utterances within their music.

mp3: High Places – On a Hill in a Bed on a Road in a House – High Places vs. Mankind (2010)

The duo is on a U.S. tour and will stop this Wednesday at the Hi-Dive in Denver.

High Places’ upcoming tourdates:

Mar 30 – Kilby Court, Salt Lake City, Utah
Mar 31 – Hi Dive, Denver, Colorado
Apr 1 – Slowdown Jr., Omaha, Nebraska
Apr 2 – Triple Rock Social Club, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Apr 3 – Schubas, Chicago, Illinois
Apr 5 – PJ’s Lager House w/ City Center, Detroit, Michigan
Apr 7 – Kungfu Necktie, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Apr 8 – Market Hotel, Brooklyn, New York
Apr 9 – Mass Art, Boston, Massachusetts
Apr 10 – Diamond Junction Bowling Lanes, Palmer, Massachusetts
Apr 16 – May 21 – Europe

This video shows one of the High Places’ early performances in NYC.

MySpace | Website

After I heard “Concrete Seconds” off of Pinback’s Blue Screen Life (2001) in early 2006, I began to fall for the band. It’s ethereal rainy day music, inspiring you to float along, deep in thought, intertwined in their lilting rendition of indie rock. The consistency of their sound is comforting and travels through each of their albums. Each song moves with minimalistic keyboard parts, doleful dual vocals, soaring guitar lines, and meditative drum beats. Within them is a certain warmth.

It all started in 1998, when Pinback’s founding members found some time on their hands. Armistead Burwell Smith IV and Rob Crow, both singers, songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, began putting together songs that evolved into their ’98 self-titled debut, a 10-song thrust into dreamily controlled strangeness. They named the band after a spaceship crew member from the 1974 sci-fi comedy Dark Star: The Spaced Out Odyssey. Sergeant Pinback is actually fuel engineer, Bill Fruge, who puts on Pinback’s space suit when trying to rescue Pinback from suicide from wading into a fuel tank before the start of the ship’s mission to destroy unstable planets. Fruge inadvertently takes the place of Pinback and adopts the ship’s mascot, a mischievous alien “beach ball with claws”, that refuses to stay put in the food locker and forces Pinback to chase it all over the ship. Does it get any stranger?

mp3: Pinback – Good To Sea – Autumn of the Seraphs (2007)
mp3: Pinback – The Yellow Ones – Summer In Abaddon (2004)
mp3: Pinback – My Star – Offcell EP (2003)
mp3: Pinback – Concrete Seconds – Blue Screen Life (2001)
mp3: Pinback – Loro – Pinback (1998)

Pinback’s most recent album, Autumn of the Seraphs, was released in September 2007. The band is currently on tour with dates across the U.S. They play the Ogden in Denver on November 6th.

Nov 5 – Granada Theatre, Lawrence, Kansas
Nov 6 – Ogden Theatre, Denver, Colorado
Nov 7 – The Depot, Salt Lake City, Utah
Nov 9 – Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, British Columbia
Nov 10 – Neumo’s Crystal Ballroom, Seattle, Washington
Nov 11 – Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, Oregon
Nov 12 – Humboldt State University The Kate Buchanan Room, Arcata, California
Nov 13 – Bimbo’s 365 Club, San Francisco, California
Nov 14 – El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles, California
Nov 15 – Belly Up Tavern, Solana Beach, California
Nov 16 – The Casbah, San Diego, California

Pinback | MySpace

Download through Amazon:
Autumn of the Seraphs | Summer in Abaddon | Offcell | Blue Screen Life | Pinback