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THE

HIGHER

PLANES

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Golden Skies - Live at Omega Works
Golden Skies - Live at Omega Works

Golden Skies - Live at Omega Works

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Tasty Visions - Live at Omega Works

Tasty Visions - Live at Omega Works

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Need Each Other So - Live at Omega Works

Need Each Other So - Live at Omega Works

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The Higher Planes - Kimmy Pushed The Button (On Christmas Eve)

The Higher Planes - Kimmy Pushed The Button (On Christmas Eve)

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REVIEWS

"After an opening number with distinctive harmony singing that sounds a little like Midlake I start to think I’m listening to late 1960s Big Brother and the Holding Company or Jefferson Airplane. That American West Coast sound really comes through, with elements of psych, folk, gospel and soul. They look the part too and joke about getting some horns and being a soul band. However, they’re no retro 60s outfit and they deliver a compelling and diverse performance, with great songs and musicianship."

FULL REVIEW 

Gig Junkies

2017

"Higher Planes convey a truly aesthetically pleasing set up, with two fiercely soulful male singer/guitarists on one side, and two equally strong female backing vocalists on the other. Granted, these ladies bring a sense of glamour to the occasion, but it would be churlish and downright rude not to acknowledge that they are also a key part of what gives them their sound. The four-part harmonies really are a treat; Adam Seakens cutting a Richard Thompson like figure (albeit with neater hair) and his brother Jon, despite possessing a speaking voice reminiscent of Rupert Bear, has a set of lungs so powerful that anyone wearing a wig had better hold on tight."

FULL REVIEW

God Is In The TV Zine

2017

"The Planes have got a refreshing take on an old format. (...) the band has an enviable knack for songcraft. This gift gives their 60s stylings a timeless quality." 

 

"In contrast to their catchy grooves, The Higher Planes populate their songs with imagery of lying politicians, downtrodden lovers and the occasional dose of psychedelic nihilism."

"We have love, soul, heartbreak and harmony coming together to deliver a sound that's thought provoking and fun. So turn on with us and join the psychedelic revolution of the Higher Planes!"

FULL REVIEW

Big Tree Music

2016

"In a bout of well timed divine guidance The Higher Planes, like prophets, dropped down to the Cosmosis festival of Psychedelia in Manchester with an important message to project, and I perceived it as this: don’t forget your roots."

"...cosmic minded, blues beaten troubadours"

"...sublime artistic discovery"

FULL REVIEW

Far Out Magazine

2014

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THE STORY

After having a bright idea, the Higher Planes went out one day and bought a cauldron. In it they added some boys and girls, some rock and roll rhythms, the leftovers from the night before's Memphis soul stew, some harmonies, and some pagan eschatology. After pouring it all out into the middle of a stone circle during Samhain, they left to purchase assorted musical instruments, and educate themselves about their forms and potentials in order that they should travel and play throughout the land. When they returned to the stone circle to eat what grew there, they became aghast to find their shadow forms, born of the soup and soil, playing a very reasonable cover of a nice Van Morrison tune. The two groups fought, until the shadow Planes, in a sublime moment of victory, ate the real ones, and stepped into the light to live and play as the humans do.

The Higher Planes like to sing about mankind's descent in as many ways as mankind is descending. Their sound is psych-tinged garage rock, sometimes dabbling in misty folk, stuffed with harmonies and ending up somewhere between Country Joe and The Fish, and the 13th Floor Elevators. They supported Hurray for the Riff Raff while the latter toured the UK, picking up a few kind reviews, and ventured down south to France to play the Fête de la Musique in Aix-en-Provence, where they discovered the hallucinatory world of artist Delphine Vaute, in a book. She designed the cover for their 2021 EP TIDAL WAVE, which just wants to soothe worried minds.
 

PERSONNEL

Adam and Jon Seakens - brothers, songwriters, singers, guitarists

Decima Hayes - singer

JJ Stillwell - double bassist

Angus Bishop - drummer

Alice and Jack - brass section

LOCATION

South East London, UK

 

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