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Heights of Abraham reviews

2007 Richard Dorfmeister - DMC Update ↓

HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM : Two Thousand and Six

Completely underrated downbeat album by Mr. Steven Cobby and friends - highly recommended for long car rides.

→ Heights of Abraham : Two Thousand and Six

2006 DMC Update ↓

HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM : Two Thousand and Six

...model chill-out musing provided by the out-of-hibernation HoA...dreaming and dusted... tuck you in ...plump your pillows... teasing and tempting... '2006', a fine vintage.

Wispy vapours exit the last junction marked alert and onto the dual carriageway of pop upholding their traditions in freestyle techno.

But while Sim Lister & Steve Cobby tuck you in, it's Jake Harries on vocals, who either ensures a good night's sleep or disrupts it by pulling you out of the duvet. 4/5

→ Heights of Abraham : Two Thousand and Six

2006 Darrell L. Lee - Amazon ↓

HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM : Two Thousand and Six

"Two Thousand Six" has already turned out to be quite a year, and here, it's even more so turned out to be quite a CD! Downtempo production team Heights of Abrahams (Steve Cobby--1/2 of Fila Brazillia--and Sim Lister, along with breathy vocalist Jake Harries) have crafted a melange of dark, yet easily-accessible and chilled left-field tracks sure to please any crowd. Full of organic grooves that shimmer with sizzling, sax solos and haunting guitar riffs, Cobb and Lister manage to get inside your mind and soul. Their songs are warm, hypnotic and slow-burning providing the appropriate ambiance for any occasion, whether it's a social gathering, or love making. This one comes Highly Recommended. "Two Thousand Six" is definitely the year for Heights of Abraham!!!

→ Heights of Abraham : Two Thousand and Six

2004 Scoundrel - Discogs ↓

HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM : Humidity

Terribly underrated and nearly forgotten, the Heights of Abraham's Humidity is a classic trip-hop album that never really got its due. And that's a pity, since the band comprises of one half of Fila Brazillia and vocalist Jake Harries. "Still Waiting" is an absolutely gorgeous track, and, to this day, I still sing along with it when I hear it. "Sportif" is a wonderfully, bouncy mid-tempo track, while "In the Cold" takes us back to romance. "Love Flows Down" becomes an ethereal track, but "10.55" returns things to earth with a humorous spoken word riff on a small town. And the final track, "Tides," ebbs and flows like the real thing, if instead of water, you had electro. Listen to this album and keep the spirit alive.

→ Heights of Abraham : Humidity

1995 Dave Simpson - Melody Maker ↓

HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM

'HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM slip into DAVE SIMPSON's bedroom at night and cool his world'

HEIGHTS of Abraham make brilliantly smouldering Radox music that covers all bases between Marvin, The Blue Nile and mid-Nineties dub culture, and soothes them outta sight.

"The dance mags label it' post- Trip-Hop'," ponders guitarist Steve Cobby down the line from Hull. "People have come to terms with what they call this 'blunted, jazz, techno instrumental thing', but we were doing that last year! It's just a lot of thumping bass and backbeat but with our distinctive melodious vibe over the top. It's original, but we're rooted in hip hop, funk and jazz and also that whole tradition of northern SOUL!! dance/rock from ACR onwards."

Heights make perfect, soul-massaging music, Steve gives perfect, brain-stimulating interview. Uninterrupted, he'll tell you how he loves surprise, spontaneity, Marvin's "Troubleman" once a week, early Factory Records and sometime singer Jake's "white blues" voice.

Then, how he hates formula, producers, record companies, advertising, ostentatious display and the cult of personality (hence photo!).

"You should never pander to expectations" insists Steve. "'Top of The Pops' IS International cabaret and everything else is folk music. Heights are like heretics, barking at the mainstream and telling them how shit they are!"

A Heights 12-inch, 'Sportif', is available on Pork Recordings, as is last year's 'Humidity' LP.'

→ Heights of Abraham : Sportif EP

1995 Dom Phillips - 101 Mixmag ↓

HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM : Electric Hush

ANYONE who heard last year's brilliant electro-jazz funk single 'Sportif' knows how good Heights of Abraham can get. Anyone who does anything much on motorways knows Heights of Abraham is also a beauty spot off the M1. Hang on until December 11th and you can enjoy an album that has all of the above and yet more: 'Sportif' was no one off. This album has real high beauty.

Heights of Abraham wonder without ever getting lost in their own laid back, consummately melodic landscape, a place where slow electric funk, soundtrack jazz, gentle acid and white soul are all to be found. 'Boogie Heights' features a slow breakbeat and a wondering, echoing saxophone - it goes on forever and it's still not long enough. On 'Dolphins' a high male voice sings mournfully over a simple keyboard "this old world will never change" and you ride his easy melancholy with glee. 'What's The Number' slides and wails over Latin funky percussion. 'Sunyatta' keeps the samba rhythms and just floats a few faraway girlie wails on top. 'Make Love' finishes things off with slow rhythms, soundtrack noises, a hard breakbeat and some chanting.

CD, maybe, coffee table, maybe, cool and rather clever, definitely. Yet devoid of muso doodling and done with such class, such a feeling for mood and for the all-important spaces between the notes that you can't help but be seduced. This is a brilliant album.

→ Heights of Abraham : Electric Hush

1995 Kevin Lewis - Generator Magazine ↓

HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM : Electric Hush

The Heights of Abraham are Steve Cobby, Jake Harries and Sim Lister. Steve is the one and only Solid Doctor while Jake and Sim were once part of Sheffield's seminal electro-hedonists Chakk. Together they've produced some of the most beautiful grooves you could imagine. Think of Frankie Knuckles' 'Your Love', add it to Galaxy 2 Galaxy's 'Hi Tech Jazz' and lay it all over Massive Attack's 'Unfinished Sympathy' and you're getting close. We're talking heart-breaking stuff here. Jake's voice is distinctive - a truly angelic set of vocal chords which are plucked with consummate ease. Check out 'Dolphins' for some musical medicine to relieve the ills of today. And, it's not just the vocals; the instrumentation is as good as you'll hear anywhere. Delve into 'High Time' to find out how to really use a 303 or look no further than 'Boogie Heights' for a lesson in 120bpm dance tracks. Without the rules. To put it bluntly, this is one of the most outstanding albums of the year and what's more, it was made in the UK. Don't miss out.

→ Heights of Abraham : Electric Hush

1995 Emma Warren - Select Magazine ↓

HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM : Electric Hush

By rights, and by twisting the precisions of the Chinese calendar to fit a musical context, 1996 should be the Year of the Pig. If we're to honour the recent merits of Hull's Pork Recordings, that is. This is the third album from the ultra-productive Pork farm in as many months, and it's made it into some DJ's Greatest-Albums-of- The-'90 s-So-Far lists, despite it only being released this month.

'Electric Hush' is one to file along with Massive Attack's 'Blue Lines', Mr Fingers' 'Classic Fingers' and Marvin Gaye's 'What's Goin' On?' - records that can't fail to make you feel. There's singing from Jake Harries bass-tone voice, and the summer classic, 'EVA' that re-appropriates saxophones away from chatshow intros and back into a glorious self-sufficient shimmer of melody. You'd be hard pressed to find a classier set of tunes, tears and soul-food bass this side of New York. An instant classic. Soundbite: "Abe's sacrificial treasure."

→ Heights of Abraham : Electric Hush

1994 Dave Simpson - Melody Maker ↓

HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM : Humidity

THEY'RE based in Sheffield. Two of them are refugees from seminal early Eighties industrial funksters Chakk; the other's done a runner from Mancunian, postbaggy soul smoothies Ashley & Jackson. The album sleeve pictures an eye looking out from what must be a computer graphic. Within it, songs have titles like "Love Flow Down", and there's some rampant, steamy sax. What's more, they record at FON and for the same underground label that brought us the bona fide Club Classic, "Fila Brazilia", last year. Now here's another one.

"Humidity" is a brilliant record. Why?

Because it (a) manages to conjure up the most sultry, smoochy urban soul grooves this side of Marvin Gaye, (b) contains more hum-in-the-bath melodies then yer average "Now" compilation, (c) features a guitarist (Steve Cobby) who has been known to collaborate with ACR's godlike Martin Moscrop, and (d) allows absolute escapism to co-exist with concern. Here's an album you can bliss out to without feeling guilty. lnterested? You should be.

Stick this on at the end of a long day and you won't need to soak your feet in Radox. lnstead, let the hazy trance rhythms of "Still Waiting" and "Sunshine" smooth away your aches and pains. Sigh as the subtle funk of "Sportif" gives way to "In The Cold" and the subway vocal ambience of The Blue Nile. Embrace also their echoes of Isaac Hayes, the odd blast of Miles, Kalima, even M-People circa "How Can I Love You More". And then prepare to gulp at the kitchen sink drama of "10:55", which begins "Oldman Flattery runs down the street being chased by his wife with a carving knife...".

It ain't 'alf a shock, mum.

But that's the beauty of this album. Airy melodies rub up against subsonic bass, aural hallucinogens hide vividly real scenes, and there's always a surprise lurking around the corner.

→ Heights of Abraham : Humidity