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September 20, 2007
Neon Lights: High Places
The second boy-girl duo on Friday night's Neon Lights bill is the ultra hip, and winningly odd, High Places. Their debut 7" record on art imprint Ancient Almanac totally sold out, probably in part to the stone rave it received from Pitchfork. The Fader and the Village Voice have also been charmed by the pop hooks locked inside their rolling tin can shells. Dumbstruck commenters and UK blogger savants alike describe their woozy psych as something they've only found in dreams until now. You can spot them at roof parties with the indie elite and soon touring the east coast with the Blow. You're desperately attracted to them, and they think they remember you from a party that one time. Your name's Ed, or something, right?
But the tunes, man! :
Like all of High Places' songs to date, "Head Spins," is seemingly over just as it's begun. When the not even two minute running time is so filled with odd instrumental digression and plain, pretty vocals such a small dosage seems cruel. Mary Pearson's voice practically skips as she tells of budding romance with playful word puns and graceful "oooh"s. Rob Barber's background is a strange and beguiling mix of steady percussion and unidentifiable clatter. His sounds swirl around Mary's down to earth singing, here a chime, here maybe something tapping on wood? But for all it's puzzling bobs and weaves, the catchiness never suffers.
"Golden" starts with spacey blips and a lightly churning ambient rattle that recalls a slightly more dynamic Fennesz. Then, out of nowhere, the song morphs into some kind of simulacrum of steel drummed Caribbean pop. With the thick scramble of sound, it's tough to tell whether Mary's warped melodies are double tracked or not, and again the two minute run time is too short to solve the sonic mysteries. It's engaging enough that repeated rewinds and Zapruder level dissection might be in order.
An earlier track from last summer, "Sandy Feat," has a cutesier indie-pop feel, albeit one cobbled together using found sounds from cracked 8 bit cartridges. Ambient squawks from intimidating synthesizers or stray game birds flutter around the edges. Mary bounces her way through a fanciful scenario about, uh, a space traveling duck, apparently. It has its own logic though, like the delightful children's story that plot line suggests. The cheap yet insistent beat it's married to is perfectly useful for full grown ass-shakers, as well.
High Places - "Greeting the Light"
(from a forthcoming Post Present Medium DVD, via Pitchfork)
Lest the comforting, yet alien wonder of all this might leave you intimidated, we leave you on a gentle and intimate note. This charming low tech video for "Greeting the Light" lays a tender exchange out for all to see, without actually depicting much but the darkened view from a nighttime window.
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Soon, we'll profile our third and final act the Most Serene Republic. But since you've just been convinced once and for all, you can buy tickets through Ticketweb right now. Or, try to win them, if you're feeling lucky.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at September 20, 2007 11:00 AM
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