High Places: Etched In Your Memory

Hometown: Brooklyn, N.Y.
Album Title: High Places
Band Members: Robert Barber (multi-instrumentalist) and Mary Pearson (vocals, bassoon)
For Fans Of: Cocteau Twins, Thrill Jockey Records, etchings.

Seventy years ago, a rakish gentleman’s come-on would’ve been to invite a lady up to ‘see his etchings.’ Today, fine-art major Robert Barber isn’t getting fresh when he utters the same phrase—he really has them. And he’s become so familiar with the bygone acid-engraving art that he wound up teaching a college course on it. “Etching, in the ’30s, was one of the main ways people met and produced art,” he explains. “And a lot of etchings from back then were pretty dramatic—like Otto Dix’s, whose stuff was all war imagery with people in gas masks crawling through trenches. And me being a weird punk-rock/art-school kid, I was always focusing on the dark stuff.”

Naturally, the first single from High Places—the percussive duo Barber formed with vocalist/bassoon student Mary Pearson—featured one of his works on the cover (recently replicated on the 03/07-09/07 anthology). The two became roommates after meeting through a mutual band-roadie friend. It was the perfect artistic match: Barber loved laborious processes like etching and lithography, while the orchestra-aimed Pearson usually practiced six hours a day. “I think we both embraced our nerdiness,” Pearson says. “And one thing we knew we didn’t want to do was use typical band instrumentation, so we use accidental things when we’re recording. I was sniffling while scratching the head of a banjo one time, and we used that as a really loud element.” That track, “Namer,” also relies on Pearson’s birdlike trill, clackety wood blocks and jazz-guitar filigrees; “A Field Guide” boasts a slapped plastic bag for snare; and “The Storm” uses hand-shaken spare change for rhythm. The end results are oddly warm, almost tropical.

“But it’s not like we’re Blue Man Group or anything,” adds Barber, who’s constantly searching for new ways to warp guitar notes. “We don’t use a ton of effects, but we’re huge fans of delay.”

So has Barber taught his chum to etch? Yes, Pearson says. “And I felt like I was getting to take his class for free. But I haven’t given him a bassoon lesson yet.”

“She hasn’t even let me touch it!” Barber snorts. “That bassoon’s worth more than everything we own!”