palm highway chase: escape from new york

Flashback to 2009, maybe late winter or something like that. The Road Chief comes back from his extended stay in Belgium all laced up with new jams from the underground. We're blazing the trails of the NE Ohio streets and valleys and on his stereo he's got this Palm, Escape from New York disc. I become immediately intrigued and bewildered -- so many questions to ask. "Who is this?" "When was this made?" "HOW was it made?" Feeling pert, we moved forward to pursue a vinyl release for the now-deceased Wagon imprint, in high hopes we could deliver this platter immediately, being the non-stop jam that it is. Many emails, dead ends, events, tours, records, other releases, and projects later, the record seemed like it would never happen. We couldn't get anything lined up, we didn't have the time to get the ball rolling, and years had started passing by quickly. Flash forward to two months ago, loading up my iPod shuffle to take to work, and I see Escape from New York in the "tunez" folder. A few cups of coffee into work and jamming it at maximum volume, work became very productive all of a sudden -- but I became so bothered by the mystery of this album that I had to go home and do some research. I tried some various contacts and shot a few emails without any expectation. Only days later I received word back from the Palm mastermind. He says "yes." So here we are, four years later, and this album will finally be pressed. This record was downloaded over 5,000 times from the Palm Myspace and Bandcamp pages; and now it will finally become a tangible artifact. Escape from New York is an enigmatic blast of fully focused, high-speed pursuit tunes channeling the 1984 tropical shoreline highway. The imaginary soundtrack to the escape from your most intense predicament. The album exists in its own universe, completely belonging to the Highway Chase vision. Escape from New York was made in January of 2009, and it still slams just as hard. The album unfolds in a linear way where every track is essential to the whole -- the album is the movie. "Street Stallion" kicks off the record proper, with a dead-serious synth lead, a seriously reverbed-out rainbow arcing sequence, and a kick drum that will fill your entire room up. This track sees reprise in the varied form of "Street Hawk" later on. Tracks like "Dark Movie Screens" and "Desert Driver" pound relentlessly hard and will have you all wrapped up in hypnotic drum machine patterns and overlapping melody with driving electro vibes, somewhat reminiscent of the legendary "Nature Makes a Mistake" track (that Running Back did a killer 12" of) except completely off the hook, with the same forward-driving sense of rhythm and drive. Meanwhile, tracks like "Ghost Cars" and "Invisible Beach" keep the wheels turning with complex structures and polyrhythms that will have you asking yourself how something could possibly be so catchy. "Space Again," closes the album, leaving you wanting to flip the record and hear more Palm jams. An honor, a pleasure, and a relief with some closure to this mystery to finally have this in a physical form.

"Desert Driver" by Palm / | \ Highway Chase