PACIFIC HEIGHTS ‘Drained ft. JEN TURNER’

Pacific Heights is the solo project of Wellington-based songwriter and producer Devin Abrams. Best known for the fifteen years he spent as one of the founding members of New Zealand group Shapeshifter, of late Devin’s focus has returned to his solo work, heralding the arrival of a new Pacific Heights album titled THE STILLNESS.

The first Pacific Heights album in eight years, THE STILLNESS is a work that pays homage to his musical past while also giving Devin the freedom to present his own vision on progressive electronic music. The album showcases Devin’s incredible knack for transforming the sonic into the cinematic. The rich textures, smoky edges, and flaring electronic surges, coupled with a number of standout guest performances make for a truly breath-taking collection of music.

The album features guest appearances from a small but perfectly formed collection of New Zealand musicians including Deanne Krieg, Jen Turner, Louis Baker and Shaan Singh (Drax Project). “Collaborating with these beautiful and talented people on the album kept me sane at times and provided some refreshing musical perspectives,” says Devin.

Of the tracks we could have featured from the album, this week on Base FM we’ve gone with ‘Drained’. Here’s a description in Devin’s own word.

 Jen Turner, who sings on ‘Drained’ and who shared the same manager as me, at the time, she was still in high school – so, she was quite young – and collaborated on that. It was initially going to be song for her album, and I got the Unintelligible, which was her vocal part that you hear now – but I kind of rearranged it – and a piano part that she recorded; and so, obviously, I rewrote the whole bedding track and rearranged her vocals and made a chorus out of it. Then she was like, “Oh, I really, really like that, but I just want to stay with acoustic music.”, so, I decided that we should put it on my album, and she agreed; so, that worked really well – a bit of a win for me.

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Watch the making of THE STILLNESS: https://WMNZ.lnk.to/PHTheMakingOfTheStillnessPR

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Turn It Up is a feature on Base FM where we showcase a new track from Aotearoa every week. Tune in weekdays at 10am and 4pm to hear this week’s top local pick.

Brought to you by NZ On Air Music.