High Places

High Places released their third long-player Original Colors in October 2011 on Thrill Jockey. The album's ten tracks are full of driving bass pulses, syncopated dance rhythms, and the binding force of Mary's mezzo-soprano vocals. Recorded in the band's home studios in Los Angeles, Original Colors is dotted with sun-drenched references to Australia's inimitable foliage, the expansive desert of Northern Mexico, and the crystal, blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Such allusions are presented over a bed of swirling stereo rhythms and infectious melodies. Each track possesses a unique texture and emotion that serve to create a variegated yet unified album of some of High Places' finest work to date.

High Places is Rob Barber and Mary Pearson. Throughout its nearly five years of existence, the band has traveled extensively and performed in a multitude of environments. Whether performing at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan or in an industrial warehouse in Santiago, Chile, High Places' enveloping sound and propulsive energy allow the music to translate to a variety of venues. Visual art plays an important role in Mary and Rob's collaboration. The two make video projections for their stage shows, keep a photo blog that documents their travels, hellohighplaces.blogspot.com, and create their own album artwork. In this way and others, Mary and Rob challenge the conventional parameters of a rock band and instead give us a multi-sensory aesthetic partnership that continually defies expectations.