The World On Higher Downs is a four piece group whose key members consist of Nathaniel Ritter, Troy Schafer, Eric Bray and Vincent Wachowiak, whom all reside in different cities of Wisconsin, USA. What started out as a loose idea based upon multiple collaborations, eventually blossomed into what is now known as 'Land Patterns', their debut CD on Tokyo based label Plop. The idea of collaboration started shortly after a local performance in 2002 by Eric Bray, who today is better known as Arctic Hospital, a Minimal Techno artist for Narita Records. Unbeknownst to him, fellow band member Nathaniel was at this very show. "We didn't even talk to one another," remembers Eric, looking back on the situation. "We had a mutual friend who was the headliner of this show, and I was just some boring IDM artist. I think we may have glanced at each other once or twice but that was it." After a number of months had passed however, Nathaniel eventually got in contact with Eric, and suggested the idea of a possible collaboration. "I had been working on my own computer music for some time but just wasn't happy with the results and I had really wanted to focus on recording live instrumentation and song-writing. Eric seemed like the perfect person to work with on a project like this as we were into similar music all over the spectrum," Nathaniel recalls. Although this had promise, it seemed as if the idea would never come into light due to many different reasons. It wasn't until Nathaniel met up with Troy Schafer, a talented multi-instrumentalist and music education major, that the idea really solidified. "I had been looking for someone to work with on less standard music locally for some time. Troy had heard some of the demos I had recorded on my own and was really thrilled to find another person in this very small city of Stevens Point who was creating stuff like I was. Troy had been playing in punk, hardcore, and screamo bands for a long time and was really kind of tired with it. I think I opened him up to a completely new scene of music he didn't know was out there yet. I was definitely excited that someone with such technical talent and musical knowledge wanted to apply it to the same kind of music I was into," Nathaniel recollects. With a batch of demo recordings finished, and with more on the way, the initial recordings were sent via mail to Eric, who would produce and arrange them. What should have been a clean-cut process turned into a year of delays and problems surrounding the construction of these tracks. "We experienced a lot of problems with the material, or more accurately I did," recalls Eric. "Harddrive failures, lost data, fried computers. Just a lot of bad stuff that really set us back at the time. I think everyone else had a hard time putting up with it."

When the tracks sounded as if they took better form, they were eventually sent back to both Nathaniel and Troy, who would record additional music on top of what Eric had done. It was during this time that Nathaniels childhood friend, Vincent Wachowiak, would step in and record bass guitar among other things, breathing new life into a number of tracks. Eventually, after many months of trial and error, the tracks were finally finished, all of which appear on their debut CD 'Land Patterns'. When asked about the concept behind the material, Eric says that it's mostly different for everyone involved. "I think everyone has a different feel about the material, but we had a couple of key factors when making the record that we wanted to maintain. We wanted to avoid a number of standard conventions in this sort of music, like playing acoustic guitar over a downsampled electronic drum beat, and instead make it more smooth I guess, more layered. We've been influenced by shoegaze acts such as Slowdive, or other groups like Labradford, and I think it shows in the tracks. Basically we wanted to avoid a lot of digital cut up and trickery." And when asked about the meaning and message? "Again, I think it's different for all of us, though there is no overall message. There are a lot of personal meanings and situations that echo through a number of these tracks, events in my life I've dealt with. But regardless of this, I think the tracks mean a good deal to all of us for many different reasons. We're happy to have recorded them, and certainly happy to have them released to the public."

'Land Patterns' sits somewhere between the murky depths of seasonal depression, cabin fever, and the blooming first days of Spring. It has an intellectual quality to it, but maintains a child-like innocence in the way its melodies flutter and with the implementation of many pitched percussion instruments. Taking ideals from both darker and lighter sides of music, 'Land Patterns' is an album that fits somewhere in between; encapsulating the greater aspects of both sides into one singular vision.