highspire

Outage be damned slowing our roll, let's go 🤘🏼

Aquatic & Take A Drive With Me EP (Deluxe), by highspire 16 track album

Around 16 years ago we released Aquatic.

This IG page basically started as stories documenting how we started. During the pandemic. Cos, that was a weird time. No one knew what was going on or gonna happen.

But we stopped around when we first went on hiatus. 2003, post a tour with Malory, Resplandor, Stellarscope, & Skywave.

We were already on hiatus by the time our first album, Your Everything, was even released in America in 2004. On the legendary Clairecords label.

 Because at that time, no one really gave a s**t about shoegaze. And it became discouraging spending all our time for years trying and being repelled by clubs and low turnouts. This is before social media mind ya.

Basically a community of the other 200-300 bands worldwide doing it. And some OG fans that kept up on the few places available like the old shoegaze.co.uk forum and places like that.

Being in our early 20s, we needed to move on with our lives. Get jobs, start families.

Me (EJ) & Alex played in some Neo-Psych bands around Philly and NYC instead for some years. One together for a few years which gave us an excuse to hang out on weekends basically.

Then in mid 2008, we were asked to join Australia Neo-Psych band the Morning After Girls. Which we really couldn’t refuse.

And we’d fly around doing gigs & fests with them. Our first full tour in TMAG was with the Warlocks in 2009. And then a West Coast tour with Asteroid after that.

When we got back from that, we set to work on Aquatic cos had some time off. Just the two of us. Recorded in my house. DIY.

And basically went on hiatus again, besides a tour in 2013 playing some of these songs. And didn’t even know that Philly became some sort of shoegaze hub after we released this, ironically.

But, we are still proud of this record. So HBD to that. Little back story. Cheers! 🙏🏼🤘🏼

That time of year for “best ofs.” But how about album art?

We finally were able to share some new music for the first time in 15 years this year. With the help of Who released 12 songs of ours this year, via 10 on our newest album Crushed, and an extra 2 tracks on the Gloria 7”.

Everyone likes what they like musically. That’s cool, that’s natural. We absolutely love seeing the music resonate & be appreciated with those who share that line of musical communication.

But we try to match the artwork to our music as best as we can. And take pride in that too!

The Crushed album art is a painting EJ did, and sold (unfortunately) to help fund the making of the album. Which, Shelflife in their wisdom, suggested that it should have transparent print. To keep the aesthetic. Unless turned to the light to catch the text.

The Gloria 7” is a photo of Pennsylvania’s “most haunted statue”: Augusta Bitner’s grave in Lancaster PA City Cemetery. Where we are technically based. With other elements from graves in that cemetery worked in.

We are beyond happy with the music, as we always just make music we want to hear. That's it. But we are also grateful that Shelflife helped us in realizing the artwork that go with these releases.

Much love to all you during the holiday season. See ya in the new year 🙏🏼🤘🏼