High Ace
As 2020-2021 left many Melbourne musicians playing alone in the burrow of the longest lockdown in the world, co-habitant musicians Alison Ferrier and Jeff Lang soon realised they had another option. “Wanna make a record?” one of them stammered, and High Ace was born.
As a wife and husband team, the project is imbibed with a rare synergy and they quickly stumbled upon a unique and almost magical song-writing method: deciphering strange incantations played in reverse, and what the unusual, twisting cadences of those vocalisations were telling them. They imparted strange tales of rattling drums and poisoned hemlocks.
This radical departure in the song-writing process was prompted when Ali & Jeff’s kids used the ‘reverse’ function on a family video rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ created for a relative. One of the most recognisable melodies in the world suddenly became strange and other worldly, inspiring Alison & Jeff to explore this as a novel way to unearth unexpected melodic pathways. They started by improvising melodies into a recorder, singing stream-of-consciousness words. While listening to those recordings played back in reverse, they would both sit together noting any interesting melodies and transcribing the sounds they had sung, to see if they sounded akin to actual words when heard backwards.
Jeff explains further; “Oftentimes one of us could hear a sentence implied where the other could not. After we’d written down what we each had decoded from the backwards recordings, we’d listen again to see if we could fill in the gaps. There’d usually be a kind of thrust to the lyrics that we could follow, even though what we were transcribing wasn’t actually in any real language.”
While singing in harmony in every song, their individual styles were given room to emerge - Lang’s disturbed folk wanderings; Ferrier’s bruising guitar riffs and solos - but this album of songs has seen them visit a place neither of them has been before.
London born and raised Singer/songwriter/guitarist/violinist Alison Ferrier has released three solo albums and most recently has been touring and releasing music with the highly-regarded Opelousas, alongside Kerri Simpson and Anthony Shortte. Their debut album ‘Opelousified’ won Music Victoria Best Blues Album of the year
In a career spanning over 30 years and many stylistic twists, Jeff Lang has won three ARIAs, collaborated with Malian Kora virtuoso Mamadou Diabate and Tabla maestro Bobby Singh in Djan Djan, recorded and performed in India and Australia with Rajasthani Desert musicians in Maru Tarang and recorded an album with the US roots enigma Chris Whitley. He's toured the UK, US and Europe multiple times and played extensively in Asia, including appearances in major festivals in Japan, China and India. In 2021, Jeff published his first book - “Some Memories Never Die” - a fascinating and funny memoir of his life on the road.
Contact our team now to discuss working with High Ace.
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