White Hills
| Track | Album |
|---|---|
| No Will | Walks For Motorists |
| Under Skin Or By Name | Glitter Glamour Atrocity |
| Oceans Of Sound | The Revenge Of Heads On Fire |
| Life Is Upon You | Walks For Motorists |
| Radiate | The Revenge Of Heads On Fire |
| Run-a-Round | Drop Out (with Gnod) |
| So You Are ... So You'll Be | So You Are ... So You'll Be |
| A Trick Of The Mind | Stop Mute Defeat |
| Pads Of Light | Frying On This Rock |
| H-p1 | H-p1 |
Ego Sensation & Dave W (Photo: Marylene May)
White Hills playlist
Contributor: Ann Sequinworld
Founded in 2003 by Dave W and Ego Sensation, White Hills are a psych band based in New York. Constantly evolving and highly prolific, the band have released over 40 recordings, all sounding very different from each other, White Hills’ first release, No Game To Play, in 2003 was later remixed as They’ve Got Blood Like We’ve Got Blood on Julian Cope’s label. The band later signed to Thrill Jockey in 2009 and have also had releases on Drug Space Records, Rocket Recordings, Roadburn, Immune Records and God Unknown Records.
Jim Jarmusch contacted the band in 2012 asking them to play themselves performing their 2007 song Under Skin Or By Name in his film Only Lovers Left Alive – an offer they gladly accepted.
While Dave W and Ego Sensation are the core of White Hills they have augmented their sound with collaborators and additional recording and touring members including Antronhy (drums, various instruments), Nick Name (drums), Bob Bellomo (drums), Daved Pankenier, Kid Millions, Shazzula and Pierre Auntour.
White Hills have carved out a multi-faceted space that fits somewhere between grimy Detroit Stoogian-rock and spaced-out Hawkwind vibes, all the while adding their own unique take to their sonic concoctions.
I hope you enjoy this Top Ten and go on to explore White Hills’ extensive back catalogue.
No Will – Walks For Motorists (2015)
“Pummelling riffage … spacey explorations, with bits of shoegaze and kosmische drift in the mix.”
Under Skin Or By Name – Glitter Glamour Atrocity (2007)
“Devotion to rock’n’roll of the intergalactic variety is fuelled by the urgency of ritual abandon, a heart-pounding, pants-wetting chant in fuzz-pedal form.”
Oceans Of Sound – Heads On Fire (2007) / The Revenge Of Heads On Fire (2022)
“Struck a riveting balance between heaviness and ethereality white proving that space rock can still stimulate, four decades after it’s Big Bang.”
Life Is Upon You – Walks For Motorists (2015)
“Coins a new form of psychedelic cosmic industrial techno, coupling motorik rhythm and cosmic music into a driving hypnotic trance.”
Radiate – Heads On Fire (2007) / The Revenge Of Heads On Fire (2022)
“Monolithic riffing and hypnotic, trance-inducing repetition, riffs so diamond hard they sparkle with an almost blinding intensity as White Hills get straight to the point.”
Run-a-Round – Drop Out (2011) – with Gnod
“Here is a band comfortable in it’s own skin, within the wide realm of ‘psych’ they seem able to move around freely, almost at will, gears shifting from song to song”
So You Are … So You’ll Be – So You Are … So You’ll Be (2013)
“Not only do they add urgency to familiar psychedelic templates but they pay just as close attention to the quiet moments as the raging ones … each track displays a careful layering of sounds and atmospheres.”
A Trick Of The Mind – Stop Mute Defeat (2017)
“Engulfing the listener in what can only be classified as a luxurious cacophony of creative madness taking you on a hallucinogenic induced thrill ride”
Pads Of Light – Frying On This Rock (2012)
“Ramp up the amps again and thrust head long into the hazy, fuzzy and dizzy world of big riffs and swirling kaleidoscopic smoke.”
H-p1 – H-p1 (2011)
“Quite possibly the finest album of space rock.”
White Hills at Thrill Jockey Records
2022 album ‘The Revenge of Heads On Fire’ at The Sleeping Shaman
2020 album ‘Splintered Metal Sky’ at bandcamp
Marshall Yarbrough review in The Brooklyn Rail (2015)
White Hills biography (AllMusic)
Ann loves the psychedelic music of the 80s/90s. In between gigs, she runs her own business, Sequin World and Bead Monster. You can follow her on twitter @ann_sequinworld and other social media sites.
These are Ann’s other posts on this site: Loop, The Heads, Thee Hypnotics, Mudhoney, Wooden Shjips, The Lucid Dream, The BellRays, Moon Duo, The Telescopes, MC5, Leatherface, Tad, Kikagaku Moyo.
The quotes relating to this top 10 are from reviews at the time of each record’s release, paraphrased here and there and attached to a song. This was a cut-up process and the quote may not originally have been about that particular song but … you know what … it doesn’t matter because it works.
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