A Guided Tour of High Vis’ Guided Tour at Holy Mountain Studios.

By Sam Retzer


Engineer Stanley Gravett is retreating down the stairs to Holy Mountain Studio after being ‘bullied’ upstairs at the Crypt of the Wizard record store. Since opening in East London, across from the idyllic Hackney Farm, the Holy Mountain team of owner Misha Hering, Gravett, and Chris Fullard have hosted locals including Idles, 40 Watt Sun, and post punk upstarts High Vis.


Drummer Edward ‘Ski’ Harper sat behind a fort of gobos to give the close mics a drier sound, and keep cymbal bleed out of the tracking room. Before the sessions, Ski utilized his home laptop studio with guitarist Martin MacNamara to demo ideas. A love of making “Primal Scream type loops” led to the programmed “baggy” inspired rhythms heard on “Mind’s A Lie” and “Untethered.” Stan and Jonah further processed “Mind’s A Lie” in the studio, adding ear candy like varispeed cymbals over the chopped up vocals of DJ Ell Murphy.
Early mixes were deliberately clipped and confrontational, before Misha dialed back the intensity with the goal of making a big and open record, with analog effects, and big gated snares. The challenge became automating the midrange, employing his GML 8200 and love of Bob Clearmountain to separate guitars and bass with surgical precision.
Missing from this tour of
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