180 Gram Audiophile Double Vinyl Pressed At Quality Record Pressings! Full Dynamic Range Experience!
Blake Mills is the last guitarist I heard that I thought was phenomenal. - Eric Clapton
Its one of the records that has really caught my ear for being something different & unique. Highly recommend this record Heigh Ho. - Joe Harley
Since quietly releasing his debut album, Break Mirrors, which critics hailed as one of the best albums of 2010, Mills has been consistently busy. He's produced recordings for The Alabama Shakes, Sara Watkins, Conor Oberst and Fiona Apple, with whom he toured extensively in 2013 and 2014. His services as a guitarist have been frequently called upon by Rick Rubin & Don Was, and he's played with Lucinda Williams, Neil Diamond, Julian Casablancas, Band of Horses, and Norah Jones. Though perhaps his most significant endeavor has been creating the highly anticipated second solo album, HEIGH HO.
"The goals on my first album were experimentation and discovery," Mills says. "The goals for HEIGH HO were sonics and capturing performance. I love how my first album sounds, but Ive heard a number of records released in the last 4 years that seem to sonically focus on making things lo-fi and reverb-drenched, so I felt compelled to create a combination of sounds I'd never heard before for this material. I also wanted to have more input from other musicians, instead of doing everything myself."
To that end, Mills asked several of his musical heroes - Jim Keltner, Tony Berg, Don Was, Jon Brion, Benmont Tench, Rob Moose, Gabe Kahane, Mike Elizondo, Griffin Goldsmith, and Fiona Apple (who duets on the slow-burning Seven and timeless sounding Dont Tell Our Friends About Me) - to collaborate on what would become HEIGH HO.
"One of the reasons I think these sessions worked out so well is because many of these musicians are also world class record producers," Mills says. "Their performances on this record revealed the spirit of this album. It reflects the spontaneity, maturity and tastefulness of my all-time favorite records."
"Blake arranged the music the way that Ce´zanne would've filled a canvas," Don Was notes of his experience playing in Blakes band. "Hes a mind-blowingly great artist with the type of deep vision that is the hallmark of true genius. It's so inspiring for musicians to play with a cat like that! If he asked us to play in orange, we wanted to give him a shade that burned so brightly as to blind the unsuspecting."
Recorded at the legendary Ocean Way studios in a room built for Frank Sinatra and used by everyone from Bob Dylan to The Rolling Stones, Mills created an album that references a range of genres without really belonging to any. "I think its truly necessary to make music that is without genre," he says. "Fiona Apple once said that there are only two types of music: honest and dishonest. That honesty is the quality that I first respond to in other people's art, and what I aspire to achieve in my own work as well."
Lyrically inspired by "under cast situational awareness, a weakness for clarity, and the impossible dream of someday being understood," HEIGH HO opens with "If Im Unworthy," a stark, heartfelt track that takes on the weight of love with humbling grace and concludes with "Curable Disease" which was finished with a little help from collaborator Jackson Brown.
"He was the first person I played that song for, and I'd initially written it as love is just a curable disease. It made more of a generalized statement. He recommended making it a suggestion; love may be a curable disease. That really helped reveal the sentiment of that song with just one word."
"When I first started writing for this record, I tried to be a little less personal and more topical, or character-based. But I couldn't do it. Nothing I wrote felt honest to me. Eventually, I accepted that I can write about my own experiences without feeling self absorbed."
Features:
180 Gram Audiophile Double Vinyl
Limited Edition 8" x 8" 20-Page color booklet with lyrics and photos
Recorded at Oceanway Studio B, with additional recording at NRG and Zeitgeist Studios
Pressed at Quality Record Pressings
Gatefold Jacket
Limited Time Digital Download Card Included
Musicians:
Blake Mills, vocals, guitar, guitarron, percussion, tiple, drums, bass harmonica, harmonica, organ
Rob Moose, strings
Tony Berg, ace tone
Gabe Kahane, ace tone, piano
Don Was, bass
Mike Elizondo, bass
Jon Brion, piano, tiple
Jim Keltner, drums, cowbell, percussion
Guest Musicians:
Fiona Apple, vocals "Seven" & "Don't Tell Our Friends About Me"
Benmont Tench (from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), piano "Seven"
Griffin Goldsmith (from the band Dawes), brushes, percussion "Three Weeks In Havana" & "Before It Fell"
Selections:
Side A:
1. If I'm Unworthy
2. Cry To Laugh
3. Just Out Of View
Side B:
1. Seven - featuring Fiona Apple
2. Don't Tell Our Friends About Me - featuring Fiona Apple
3. Gold Coast Sinkin'
Side C:
1. Silence Is Sincerity
2. Half Asleep
3. Three Weeks In Havana
4. Before It Fell
Side D:
1. Shed Your Head
2. Curable Disease
Blake Mills is the last guitarist I heard that I thought was phenomenal. - Eric Clapton
Its one of the records that has really caught my ear for being something different & unique. Highly recommend this record Heigh Ho. - Joe Harley
Since quietly releasing his debut album, Break Mirrors, which critics hailed as one of the best albums of 2010, Mills has been consistently busy. He's produced recordings for The Alabama Shakes, Sara Watkins, Conor Oberst and Fiona Apple, with whom he toured extensively in 2013 and 2014. His services as a guitarist have been frequently called upon by Rick Rubin & Don Was, and he's played with Lucinda Williams, Neil Diamond, Julian Casablancas, Band of Horses, and Norah Jones. Though perhaps his most significant endeavor has been creating the highly anticipated second solo album, HEIGH HO.
"The goals on my first album were experimentation and discovery," Mills says. "The goals for HEIGH HO were sonics and capturing performance. I love how my first album sounds, but Ive heard a number of records released in the last 4 years that seem to sonically focus on making things lo-fi and reverb-drenched, so I felt compelled to create a combination of sounds I'd never heard before for this material. I also wanted to have more input from other musicians, instead of doing everything myself."
To that end, Mills asked several of his musical heroes - Jim Keltner, Tony Berg, Don Was, Jon Brion, Benmont Tench, Rob Moose, Gabe Kahane, Mike Elizondo, Griffin Goldsmith, and Fiona Apple (who duets on the slow-burning Seven and timeless sounding Dont Tell Our Friends About Me) - to collaborate on what would become HEIGH HO.
"One of the reasons I think these sessions worked out so well is because many of these musicians are also world class record producers," Mills says. "Their performances on this record revealed the spirit of this album. It reflects the spontaneity, maturity and tastefulness of my all-time favorite records."
"Blake arranged the music the way that Ce´zanne would've filled a canvas," Don Was notes of his experience playing in Blakes band. "Hes a mind-blowingly great artist with the type of deep vision that is the hallmark of true genius. It's so inspiring for musicians to play with a cat like that! If he asked us to play in orange, we wanted to give him a shade that burned so brightly as to blind the unsuspecting."
Recorded at the legendary Ocean Way studios in a room built for Frank Sinatra and used by everyone from Bob Dylan to The Rolling Stones, Mills created an album that references a range of genres without really belonging to any. "I think its truly necessary to make music that is without genre," he says. "Fiona Apple once said that there are only two types of music: honest and dishonest. That honesty is the quality that I first respond to in other people's art, and what I aspire to achieve in my own work as well."
Lyrically inspired by "under cast situational awareness, a weakness for clarity, and the impossible dream of someday being understood," HEIGH HO opens with "If Im Unworthy," a stark, heartfelt track that takes on the weight of love with humbling grace and concludes with "Curable Disease" which was finished with a little help from collaborator Jackson Brown.
"He was the first person I played that song for, and I'd initially written it as love is just a curable disease. It made more of a generalized statement. He recommended making it a suggestion; love may be a curable disease. That really helped reveal the sentiment of that song with just one word."
"When I first started writing for this record, I tried to be a little less personal and more topical, or character-based. But I couldn't do it. Nothing I wrote felt honest to me. Eventually, I accepted that I can write about my own experiences without feeling self absorbed."
Features:
180 Gram Audiophile Double Vinyl
Limited Edition 8" x 8" 20-Page color booklet with lyrics and photos
Recorded at Oceanway Studio B, with additional recording at NRG and Zeitgeist Studios
Pressed at Quality Record Pressings
Gatefold Jacket
Limited Time Digital Download Card Included
Musicians:
Blake Mills, vocals, guitar, guitarron, percussion, tiple, drums, bass harmonica, harmonica, organ
Rob Moose, strings
Tony Berg, ace tone
Gabe Kahane, ace tone, piano
Don Was, bass
Mike Elizondo, bass
Jon Brion, piano, tiple
Jim Keltner, drums, cowbell, percussion
Guest Musicians:
Fiona Apple, vocals "Seven" & "Don't Tell Our Friends About Me"
Benmont Tench (from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), piano "Seven"
Griffin Goldsmith (from the band Dawes), brushes, percussion "Three Weeks In Havana" & "Before It Fell"
Selections:
Side A:
1. If I'm Unworthy
2. Cry To Laugh
3. Just Out Of View
Side B:
1. Seven - featuring Fiona Apple
2. Don't Tell Our Friends About Me - featuring Fiona Apple
3. Gold Coast Sinkin'
Side C:
1. Silence Is Sincerity
2. Half Asleep
3. Three Weeks In Havana
4. Before It Fell
Side D:
1. Shed Your Head
2. Curable Disease
