The story of Highlife carries many similarities to the one of The Drums: – and a bunch of painters from the early 1900: musicians stressed out by the city’s lifestyle escape to sunny marine location far from metropolitan madness in search of a way of life more conducive to musical creation, find inspiration, make great music and return to NYC with songs that sound like sun and sea – two things New Yorkers should be very familiar with, by the way (perhaps NYC’s sun and sea are not as inspiring as its other virtues…)
Highlife was born in 2008 when Shaw, along with White Magic collaborator Mira Billotte, retreated from New York to the small island of Gaspar Grande off the coast of Trinidad, at the southernmost point of the Caribbean trail. The pair spent long, wandering nights chanting and inducing trance, recording on a portable setup that Shaw had lugged along. The rough demos were brought to a London studio, where Shaw and Billotte re-recorded them and finalized them with the help of producer Harvey Birrel (Crass, Sir Richard Bishop, Buzzcocks). Now back in NYC, the band is readying the launch of the band’s debut EP "Best Bilss" scheduled for the end of September.