EMMIT FENN - HIGHER

“Only higher we shall go” is the sole lyric on Emmit Fenn’s aptly named  “Higher”. It’s sung in such feathery soft falsetto that it takes several close listens (read: looking up the lyrics on Genius) to make out what is even being said.

But even if the words were indiscernible or gibberish, it wouldn’t change this song one iota. This one is all about the music and the atmosphere and feelings it creates.

“Higher” sounds like the soundtrack to when you’re lying in a new lover's embrace, completely spent on a mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual level. Only your brain and heart are racing 1000 mph and you finally understand what the phrase punch drunk means.

This song sounds like that moment.

EMMIT FENN - HIGHER

Emmit Fenn started making music at the age of 12 to cope with and escape the realities of his parents’ divorce. You could say that this early trauma is why he makes gloomy, downtempo indie electronica, but that would literally be the case regardless of what style of music he creates.

Music as a means of distraction seems woven into the fiber of our beings. We all danced and sang long before we could string a series of words together. Like a baby dancing and clapping to a song, “Higher” taps into the primordial instinct to get lost in music.

There’s no narative to follow, just a mantra repeated intermittently between a fluctuating series of electronic pulses and percussion that sound like a deep tissue massage to the soul.

Whatever is going on here, it’s hard to pin down but it definitely has a Bon Iver x Drive Soundtrack vibe to it. Or maybe RX Y if the dude had listened to more house music.

Whatever it is though, it sounds fucking great.

Calvin Paradise is not any one thing. The half-hearted vagabond and forgetful luddite currently resides in Los Angeles and how he spends his time is none of your damned business.