4.22.2009

Evan Voytas :: "Getting Higher"

In one of the more winning moments off Passion Pit's forthcoming LP, a chorus of little children chant "higher and higher and higher." The song, track two, "Little Secrets" isn't intensely memorable. But the elevation of children's voices, in all of their instructive glory, encouraging us to lift off will stick with you. Triumph seems to be a common theme recently, which might explain why Evan Voytas' "Getting Higher," - also higher-than-hi-fi rife with synth - is speaking to me. Get up, lift off. You can do this.

The arrangement is packaged, planned, and almost totally digital. "Getting Higher" is silicon-weightless enough to be a Tigercity song or a Phoenix b-side. Hell, if the vocals were more piercing, it could hide on the Passion Pit album. The Hall and Oates guitar is the only tip-off that instruments, in any conventional sense, were used in the making of this album. Warning: no synths were killed in the making of this record - only abused and left for dead. The drums are packaged and the synths soar back-and-forth doing the musical version of a bicycle figure-eight.

But, by the time the digitized chimes buzz your tower, this cold concoction of zeros and ones doesn't feel freezing at all. Even for all of its computerized austerity and careful planning, "Getting Higher" still feels like it might bounce off the ground. It is both likeable and self-aware. It has a heartbeat. This is rare. You can do it.

Listen :: Evan Voytas - "Getting Higher"

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