Tall Heights wants to share a moment with you. A moment in New England, a moment on Earth. With their 2024 release, Softly Softly, Paul Wright (cello/vocals) and Tim Harrington (guitar/vocals) reject isolation; both the universal experience of the early 2020s, and its sound recording definition where different instruments are recorded separately. Harrington explains, "The opposite of isolation in recording is bleed, where you hear the drums and guitar through the vocal mic because everything is happening in the same room. It's risky because you can't easily change it later. You're stuck with whatever you get. Bleeding is just the perfect word for it. It's scary and it sometimes hurts."
After the pandemic, Ben Folds invited the Boston-based duo to Nashville to make his latest album, What Matters Most (New West, 2023). Following this month-long apprenticeship under Folds, Tall Heights became focused on records that testify to a specific place and time. They started drawing inspiration from classic Simon and Garfunkel albums like Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water. Their focus narrowed to "something pretty simple actually," Wright explains, "to capture a real moment with real people in an actual room."
For 10 days in rural Massachusetts, the childhood friends captured brand new songs in an old fashioned way. “It was us two plus a cousin, some old friends, a guy we found on TikTok, a flutist we once saw on stage with Kishi Bashi–the latter two we had never actually met in person– Paul’s wife, a studio engineer, and an intern” Harrington fondly remembers. The songs document fall in New England, family crisis, love, climate change, and even undertake a school shooting on the title track. The album maintains their unique vocal blend, which has earned them nearly half a billion streams, but it feels more spontaneous and timeless than their previous work. Harrington sums it up: "We aimed to create something you might effortlessly accept as true. In today's skeptical world of pandemics, politics, and AI, my hunch is we're all craving it like that."
In the spirit of sharing, Tall Heights decided to flout the norms of today’s music industry by offering Softly Softly to their fans 3 months early. They created a 10 day digital immersion called “The Endless Autumn Experience” that fans could opt into for free. Thousands flocked to Endless Autumn, gaining instant access to the new album and hours of behind-the-scenes content, exclusive offers and opportunities, and direct access to Tim and Paul themselves. “Endless Autumn really kinda fixed me,” says Wright, “These damn algorithms can really beat a guy up. So it just feels so good to reach out directly to people who actually care and have that relationship person-to-person.” Softly Softly is out everywhere October 18, 2024.
