Highest Hopelessness

Highest Hopelessness may have overtaken Paneye as my main musical focus now, and I feel it is time to talk about what’s happened. 

In a previous post, I had described going into my vast trove of unreleased songs from my many years of music making, and planned to release them all. Much of this music was electronic house/trance/techno music that I felt I wasn’t able to release as Paneye, as it didn’t entirely fit with the minimalist and experimental style I was going for at the time. 

I have a strong background in chill out, trance, house and trip hop music, as my mother frequently played Massive Attack, and later Weekend Players, around the family home. This is primarily where my electronic music influences began, even though I’ve primarily viewed myself as a psych-folk guitarist. 

Sometime around 2022 I was contacted by my friend Kim to perform at one of his Nude Life Drawing events as a background musician. This began to open many doors and connections for me. In particular, I have become very close with Fire Rabbit, who is a known music producer, but who wishes to remain anonymous. 

Fire Rabbit and I began jamming together, and FR was able to breathe new life into many of my old electronic sketches, while bringing in massive amounts of their own music. Shortly afterwards, we decided to make a musical group. Fire Rabbit is primary producer and mixer for the Highest Hopelessness.

First, we teamed up with beat master Earth Snake to record, program and diversify our original placeholder drum patterns. Val, a bass head, came in to round us out at the low end, as both Fire Rabbit and I typically don’t make bass-heavy music. Val also provided many of the distant and reverb- drenched “barely-there” vocals. Many of her bass contributions are original additions to our songs, and she also contributes occasional ambient synths and guitar. 

Val was joined by Pegg, and later Kenny, to round out a trio of female vocalist.

Things kept moving, and old mate Hex caught wind of the band and turned up with a giant synth and loads of other indescribably weird devices. Starting as a guest artist, Hex joined as a member on lead-synths once the synergy was established. He has since become a key contributor of music and ideas, and a key producer and mixer with Fire Rabbit. 

Highest Hopelessness has now grown into something of a fraternity of artists and musicians.  I am the unofficial spokesperson for the group, as the other members wish to conceal their identities for now and let the music speak for itself.  

However, as the only public member I also feel I cannot take all the credit for Highest Hopelessness. So, here’s the backstory so that you know why the planned release of my back catalogue of electronic music never happened, and why a wider release of my 2022 album Incantations isn’t on Spotify or YouTube yet. 

There will be more to say about Highest Hopelessness soon, but for now I hope you enjoy the sounds!