HIM

Despite the group's tangled past and shifting lineups, HiM owes its existence chiefly to multi-instrumentalist Doug Scharin. Long active in the fertile Midwest indie community, Scharin launched the project as an outlet while pausing between commitments to Codeine, Rex, and June of 44. Although frequently tagged a dub-inflected strain of post-rock, the ensemble actually merges rock, post-punk, jazz, and Afro-beat with a keen appreciation for studio-crafted roots reggae.

HiM came together in 1995, its earliest recordings consisting solely of Scharin's solitary studio experiments. Working with gear newly obtained by Rex, he pieced together the tracks that became the 1995 release Egg. The next year, during a visit to Bill Laswell's Greenpoint Studios in New York, the drummer crossed paths with Wordsound founder Skiz Fernando, which led to HiM's "Chemical Mix" appearing on the first Crooklyn Dub Consortium compilation. Wordsound then issued the full-length Interpretive Belief System in 1997.

Only in 1999 did Scharin first attempt to assemble a steady ensemble. Bundy K. Brown on bass, guitarist Jeff Parker, and cornetist Rob Mazurek—all veterans of Tortoise or Isotope 217—joined him to cut Sworn Eyes. After laying down basic tracks for this collection of polyrhythmic, dubwise pieces, Scharin processed and edited the results in the manner of Teo Macero, the producer behind Miles Davis's electric sessions of the 1970s. Coordinating schedules among such busy musicians proved impractical, however, since HiM served merely as a sideline for the others, so Scharin had to start over.

Once June of 44 disbanded, Scharin recruited two members for touring. Guitarist Sean Meadows chose not to continue afterward, yet bassist and trumpeter Fred Erskine stayed on. Erskine had performed from an early age, mastering violin, piano, and trumpet by eight before shifting focus to vocals and bass in punk bands. Subsequent stints with Hoover, the Boom, Crownhate Ruin, and B. & Jay preceded the 1995 formation of June of 44. Scharin and Erskine then added Carlo Cennamo, Erskine's former bandmate from the Boom, creating HiM's first relatively stable configuration. Their initial collaboration, Our Point of Departure, appeared on Perishable in 1999. For live shows the group expanded with Sasha Frere-Jones of Ui, Shane Trost, Joseph McRedmond, Joshua LaRue, and additional drummers Jon Theodore and Neil Turpin, adopting an onstage rotation of bass, drums, keyboard, and horns during 2000 tours across the United States and Europe.

The musicians had finally found momentum. Now a septet that also included Theodore, LaRue, Devin O'Campo, and Vin Novara, HiM recorded at San Francisco's Pig's Head Studios for the follow-up to Our Point of Departure. The three-track remix preview Five & Six in Dub surfaced in December 2000; the well-received New Features followed the next summer, and Many in High Places Are Not Well arrived in 2003. After another short break the band regrouped and released Peoples on Bubble Core in 2006.