“Ecstasy Rhymes” is joyous return to perfect indie
pop-rock form by sole female founder of legendary musical collective. Hear first
two singles, out now!
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The High Water Marks (L-R): Logan
Miller, Hilarie Sidney, Per Ole Bratset, Øystein Megård. Photo credit: Self-Portraits, Illustration by Per
Ole Bratset.
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The High Water Marks | In The Press
“Clock-stopping, pulse-raising mega-pop.” — UNCUT
“Complex and considered arrangements... Sugar-coated
melodies to spare.” — Pitchfork
“Beautifully warm, catchy, high-energy... garage pop
for the masses.” — PASTE
“Winning post-punk pop that’s heavy on the fuzz.” — Under The Radar
“Giddy pop... Punchy songwriting... Undeniably sunny.”
— Westword (Denver)
“Get a fix of the exquisitely crafted brand of lo-fi
rock.” — PopMatters
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The High Water Marks | “Can You”
[STREAM]: https://Fanatic.lnk.to/TheHighWaterMarks-CanYou
[VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3c8c5DGOpE
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About | “Can You”
“Instantly recalls the heyday of
Elephant 6, with an earworm melody nestled in fuzzy indie rock production.” —
Brooklyn Vegan
“‘Can You’
is a song about pushing back the darkness to find the light. I wrote it during
the dark months. I should add that we were recording in Logan’s studio, which also served as a guest room for my son, Anders. One night we were up late doing
vocals, and Anders kept saying the
lyrics to ‘Can You’ back to me in a
very serious voice and then cracking up. He’s a snarky teenager. I won’t forget
that.” – Hilarie Sidney, The High Water Marks
Listen via Brooklyn
Vegan or at the links above!
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[STREAM]: https://Fanatic.lnk.to/TheHighWaterMarks-AwardShow
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About | “Award Show”
“It’s classic indie rock, yeah,” says Beats
Per Minute about “Award Show”
by The High Water Marks, “but there
is something more coursing through its melodic veins, resulting in a wry
distillation of influence and experience which few bands can express with any
sense of finality. The High Water Marks
manage this herculean task without the least bit of effort.”
“‘Award Show’ is about anxiety, being
really confident, and then over-thinking your behavior. You know, you go
somewhere and try really hard, and act like you’ve got your shit together, and
then you go home and start replaying conversations in your head and feeling
foolish.” – Hilarie Sidney, The High Water Marks
Listen via Beats
Per Minute or at the link above!
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The High Water Marks
Ecstasy
Rhymes
Nov. 20th, 2020
(Minty Fresh)
Track Listing:
01. Ode To Lieutenant Glahn
02. Annual Rings
03. Can You (STREAM | VIDEO)
04. Ecstasy Rhymes
05. Award Show (STREAM)
06. Some Like It Lukewarm
07. The Trouble With Friends
08. I’ll Be Formal (With You Because of It)
09. Pepin le Bref
10. Accidentally On Purpose
11. Satellite
12. Pretending To Be Loud
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The High
Water Marks | About
“I am so lucky to have been a musician throughout my
life,” says Hilarie Sidney of The High Water Marks, the band she
fronts out of her adopted home town of Grøa, Norway. The foursome is set to
release Ecstasy Rhymes, its first album in 13 years, via Minty Fresh on Nov. 20th, 2020.
You probably know Sidney
best for what she got up to during her time living in Denver, Colorado.
Sidney is the co-founder of one of the most influential
musical collectives of the past, oh, forever amount of years.
Elephant 6 is a storied, and now legendary, musical collective
and Sidney was as at its nucleus as
a founding member of The Apples in
stereo.
It was a “boys club,” Sidney confesses.
Sidney was the only woman among her band and the other two
acts – Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control – that were the
most visible members of Elephant 6,
and as the umbrella opened to international recognition and acclaim, and to
seemingly dozens of other bands that wanted to be a part, Sidney’s enthusiasm drifted.
Her passion for songwriting never wavered, however.
“Having been in the Apples and on the road since 1993, I started to have many more
songs than could ever be released on an Apples
record. I was piling up songs, and being surrounded by a group of men for so
many years, one can lose oneself,” she confides.
Sidney eventually found new love, and a new musical
partnership, when she formed The High
Water Marks, releasing a debut album (Songs About The Ocean) in 2003. The
record was written and demoed through the mail with her now-husband and bandmate,
Per Ole Bratset, whom she initially
met at an Apples gig in Norway in
2002. A follow-up album (Polar) arrived in 2007.
By that time, Sidney
and Bratset were an item.
“Per and I
had our son in 2005,” Sidney says of
becoming a mother for the second time (Sidney
and Schneider also have a son from
their marriage.) “I realized I wanted a break from touring. That whole life had
begun to wear me out.”
The fallout from Sidney’s
divorce from Schneider, and life as
a mom with two boys, led her to officially leave the Apples in 2006 and to put the music business on the back burner
soon after.
“Still writing songs, always writing songs...”
With that, Sidney
attempted to clean out the closet in 2011, leading to some recording sessions
that eventually had to be scrapped, and leaving her to feel “kind of hopeless,”
she remembers.
But drummers are tough!
Sidney picked herself up and headed in another direction by
beginning to finish up a Bachelor’s degree, which led to her being awarded a
prestigious study abroad scholarship at the University of Oslo.
“Moving was everything I had hoped it would be,” she
explains. “In Norway, we have a work-life balance, health care, a living wage,
five weeks of vacation, and freedom for our youngest son to roam without
constant supervision.”
Perhaps most importantly, she started playing music
again.
Thirteen years after releasing her last album as The High Water Marks, the band has
completed a new album that reflects the maturity, perseverance, songwriting,
and performing talent that made Sidney’s
contributions to Elephant 6 and the Apples so integral.
If she was marginalized at the time, those notions are
blown out by Ecstasy Rhymes, 38 minutes of perfect power pop, one song after
another that will take any fan of the songs that Sidney contributed to Apples
recordings – her voice is instantly recognizable – right back to the most
potent days of that band’s career.
As he did on previous releases, Bratset also contributes lead vocals on several songs, all of which
were co-written with Sidney. In
addition to Sidney on Vocals,
Guitars, Keyboards, and Drums, and Bratset
on Vocals and Guitars, the band includes Logan
Miller on Bass, Guitar, and Drums, along with Øystein Megård on Drums. Keyboards, and Backing Vocals.
“I feel like for the first time ever, we have a dream
team,” Sidney says. “I have my
partner in crime by my side, like always, but we managed to also find these two
other fantastic people who we can work with so well. We finally have the best
band we’ve ever had and a great record.”
Seems Sidney’s
luck as a musician hasn’t run out yet.
Ecstasy Rhymes, the first album in 13 years by The
High Water Marks, arrives Nov. 20th,
2020 on Minty Fresh. The album’s
first singles “Can You” and “Award Show” are out now.
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The High Water Marks | Links
ASSETS : FACEBOOK : INSTAGRAM : SPOTIFY : APPLE : MINTY FRESH
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Josh Bloom at Fanatic
Promotion | Contact
WEBSITE
: FACEBOOK : TWITTER : YOUTUBE : INSTAGRAM : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL
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