For almost a decade, Burlington groove and soul outfit High Summer have been a study in paradox. For one, when the sprawling, eight-piece band launched from the Radio Bean stage in 2017, it felt like it had been on the scene forever. Indeed, its members are all established vets who’ve been in sco res of Queen City acts between them, including Japhy Ryder, Steady Betty and Barika. This new collaboration was something both familiar and exotic. For another: Eight years after debuting their massive, highly danceable brand of music, High Summer were curiously silent — aside from their gigs, which tend to be sporadic but come in bunches. They’d released no albums, singles or music videos. The only online trace of the group even existing was some live footage on YouTube. “Practically speaking, we were sort of invisible as a band,” saxophonist Jacob Deva Racusin admitted in a phone conversation last week. “We realized we needed to finally document our work. We had to have an enduring artifact.” High Summer have done just that, at last. This Friday, December 5, the band will issue its debut LP, For the World, followed by a release party on Saturday, December 6, at Foam Brewers in Burlington. But even here lies another paradox. With studio tracks recorded at keyboardist Andric Severance’s home studio and live ones cut over several sessions at engineer Ben Collette’s Tank Recording Studio in Burlington, the record is a hybrid. It’s neither a studio album nor a live album. And it’s also both. Whatever you call it, For the World is a clear demarcation point for the band, a monument around which to rally and evolve. And while the album’s creation took almost a decade, Racusin said the band had a good reason for waiting. “Honestly, we just weren’t ready,” he said of earlier attempts to record High Summer. “We’re not really a studio band. We’re an eight-person band that wants to get a live audience moving. It’s just so hard to translate that sort of energy onto tape — it’s high craft, slow burn.” Racusin said the band had to grow into its true self first. When High Summer started gigging around the area, it played a mix of covers and originals, like many groups. But with five songwriters in the band, it took High Summer a while to fuse and develop a sonic identity. “This is easily the most collaborative project I’ve ever worked on,” Racusin said. “We wanted the sound of a unit, not individuals, so we had to work through that period to develop a signature sound.” It’s safe to say they’ve reached that point. Take the single “Burn Down,” for example. With funky, bass-driven verses; stabs of organ; teasing guitar licks; and a horn-heavy, soaring chorus, the song displays High Summer’s hallmarks: groove for days, a powerful vocal melody from singer Miriam Bernardo and screw-tight dynamic shifts. “We’re not really a studio band. We’re an eight-person band that wants to get a live audience moving.”Jacob Deva Racusin In order to properly capture that vibe, the band decided to finish its debut in front of a live audience at the Tank. While For the World is not a traditional live record — the small in-studio audience wore headphones, listening in as the band tracked the songs live — the very presence of a crowd took the album over the top, according to Racusin. “It changed the temperature in such a cool way,” he said. “Seeing Miriam make eye contact with someone and blow them a kiss or a stray hoot or cheer after a song — I remember playing and really reacting to that. So it absolutely colored how we all played on the record.” High Summer at Tank Recording Studio in Burlington Credit: Courtesy Racusin sees the Tank sessions as transformative. “We were a different band leaving the Tank than when we came in,” he said. The band, which also includes bassist Jon McCartan, drummer Jason Thime, guitarist Al Teodosio, percussionist Matt DeLuca and saxophonist Matt Davide, has evolved over its eight years to become the lean, mean groove machine heard on For the World. In their earlier years, High Summer were prone to overly complex arrangements and acts of instrumental prowess, but they’ve refined and refocused their music. They let the title track breathe, feeding a slow-burning fire of funk and soul beneath Bernardo’s powerhouse vocals. The song presents a unified front, a big band working in near-telepathic union, as opposed to a sprawling jam. Forging that kind of connection was a natural process, Racusin explained, pointing to the band members’ long histories together and tight-knit bond. “The whole ethos of this band is love. It’s a love fest,” he said. “We’re all old friends with so much shared love for one another. And that love keeps us creative, because the vital sign of a band is whether or not you’re making new music.” High Summer are indeed doing that. Racusin said they’ve already written much of the follow-up to For the World, promising it won’t be another eight years before the next album drops. The band plans to perform some of the new material alongside the album tracks at the Foam Brewers release. It’s not easy to find stages that fit a band as expansive as High Summer, though Racusin hopes finally having an album out will make booking shows easier for the outfit. “It’s been a learning experience for me. I haven’t put a record out in a long time, and the industry has really, really changed,” he said with an exasperated laugh. “I’ve had to devote a lot of time that I’d usually spend writing music to getting a grip on social media and promotion.” Now that the record is done and the release show is nigh, Racusin is ready for the next stage of the band’s evolution. With an album in tow and a bigger presence on the web, High Summer are ready to stop being Vermont’s best-kept secret and step into the sun.  High Summer Album Release Show, Saturday, December 6, 8 p.m., at Foam Brewers in Burlington. Free. foambrewers.com The original print version of this article was headlined “Late Summer | After eight years on the scene, Burlington soul band High Summer finally drop their debut LP” The post Burlington’s High Summer Finally Drop Their Debut LP appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less