‘Higher’ started in a very unusual way for me. A very, very, unusual way. My friend Salvador Breed sent me a video of a parrot vocalising / imitating a percussive rhythm. It sounded like the parrot had been hearing drums and was imitating those sounds. But something in the rhythm immediately triggered me. It sounded like the parrot had been hearing some pretty complex rhythms, it sounded to me like it was switching between straight and triplet time in every bar. (In non technical terms, within four counts it would constantly switch between two completely different rhythmical feels.) When I heard this and realised what kind of opportunities this complexity could give, I immediately ran upstairs to my attic studio and tried imitating / reproducing the groove that I thought the parrot must have heard and was imitating / reproducing.

The triplet feel has something very non-european to it, I’ve been into exploring different takes on rhythm a lot. I’ve been cratedigging on Bandcamp for South American club music, and also been listening to African pop and club music quite a lot. As with every obsessive listening period I go through, it’s only a matter of time before this really starts translating in my output. The same influences are very clearly audible in my ‘Ugly’ remix for Big Dope P and Mighty Mark, I think. ‘Higher’ goes a bit further in rhythmical complexity than where I left off with ‘Ugly’. But as always, my goal with club music is not to make something that sounds complex. The complexity in the groove and the sound has to come across intuitive and immediate, that’s always been the goal, both with Noisia and in my solo work.

I started it in the attic studio upstairs in my house. Then I worked on it in LA from my covid isolation room, because I wanted to play a more finished version at my Brownies and Lemonade show, which was recorded and an early version of Higher appears around the 25 minute mark: https://soundcloud.com/iamthys/thys-brownies-and-lemonade. I mixed the tune in the studio, and then worked on it in airplanes (thank god for noise cancelling headphones!) and hotels travelling to shows and holiday destinations. I finished the track in a full-on heatwave, on a laptop and headphones, in swimwear with a fan pointed at me, while on vacation in Italy :D It’s got quite a story, this one!

The artwork is a collab between Shy1 (one of Amon Tobin’s many pseudonyms) who made the weird golden bird statue illustration, and Tom Jager, who does a lot of the art for my label Eccentric O and also does a lot of amazing work for Noisia and Vision.