The Duo Explains: The Desert - 'Just Get High' (Single)

Bristol-based duo The Desert speak to us about their debut single 'Just Get High', the first track from their forthcoming debut EP, ‘Playing Dead’.
The Desert is a collaboration between singer-songwriter Gina Leonard and guitarist & producer Tom Fryer.

The Desert Explains:
This song opens with a punchy electro beat that contrasts with Gina’s reticent vocal delivery. The title ‘Just Get High’ which makes up the chorus’ hook can be interpreted in different ways. The song ends with a more acoustic stripped back chorus of just Gina and her guitar, which was the final thing we rerecorded on the EP, despite the fact that we made the rest of the song before we signed with Funnel.

'Just Get High' was originally intended to be a demo. Gina sent me a version she had recorded late one night in her bedroom in Cambridge, on a simple set-up using Garageband. She emailed it to me, and I thought I'd have a play around with it seeing as 'Playing Dead' had come out well, which by that point we had already finished. So I time-stretched it into shape and made a kind of house beat for it, with a James Blake-esque synthesiser texture that grows and expands to dominate the whole track. In the end we decided to retouch it and put it on the EP. That's the kind of DIY bedroom sound that we want to keep as part of our sound, and you can’t really recreate that in the studio. Our first EP really represents that transition between bedroom production and professionalism; 'Just Get High' and 'Playing Dead' were written before we even knew we would be working and playing together in The Desert, whereas the other songs on the EP were written and produced with more resources and facilities available.

Feature by Karla Harris