Once Bend

HIGHSIGH—the trio of Ro(b)//ert Lundberg (JOBS), John Dieterich (Deerhoof), and Matt Mehlan (Skeletons)—is just as much about the process as the end result. While the band name is new, HIGHSIGH grows out of years of friendship and collaboration between John, Matt, and Ro in other settings—Deerhoof and Skeletons’ convergence in the Congotronics International supergroup, Ro lending bass to Skeletons’ touring and recording bands, John and Matt both playing on and engineering various JOBS records, as well as many coffees, meals, and hikes.Their debut album, Once Bend, presents as both disarmingly familiar and a strangely opaque patchwork of mutant pop and abstract polyrhythmic soundscapes. Created in a collage-like fashion, each member brought in deceptively rich musical fragments that had been cast aside from other projects, almost like little question marks for the other members to decipher and interpret. The initial ideas were all rhythmic and percussive. In an early conversation, Ro, John, and Matt discussed the possibility of the three non-drummers making a drum trio record—like the spirit of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, the idea of a band in which everyone is operating outside their area of expertise.These fragments were traded between members freely and with no specific goal, each toying and tinkering with what they were given, adding on phrases, sounds, and textures. The musical layers that returned were consistently unexpected and exhilarating. Suddenly, new sonic colors presented themselves, reframing each artist’s ideas. HIGHSIGH hadn’t started with a pattern, yet a coherent patchwork developed within each song—layered guitars and bowed bass sit alongside languidly propulsive synth tones and crisp, driving acoustic drums. The band expanded its sharing circle, sending tracks to Tim Barnes, Ben LaMar Gay, Max Jaffe, Lia Kohl, Booker Stardrum, and Jon Starks to stitch together drums, cello, and cornet lines. These question marks revealed layered answers through successive waves of rhythm and melody, with a core polyrhythmic sensibility maintained that all of the members and contributors approached from different angles.These raw tapestries found final structure and order through lyrics, some written by the band themselves, others by Macie Stewart (Finom) and Paige Alice Naylor “Lyrically, I’m interested in simple moments of revelation,” Matt Mehlan says. “What’s the environment, what’s the feeling?” This theme appears across this album, unifying the distinct voices enlisted.On Once Bend, HIGHSIGH presents their homespun musical quilts—stitched through strings and circuits and servers across Turtle Island.