Low

Ned

Ruby Tuesday
The band not the Bowie album. Any fans? Saw them do 'Things We Lost in the Fire' at Koko in Camden on Thursday as part of Don't Look Back thing, it was great. They're one of those bands where I just have no idea how popular they really are.
 

lissajou

Well-known member
saw them open for swans several times in ages past.

lovely, heartbreakingly beautiful stuff.

their performances were so subtle,
the impatient sighing of the goths who
comprised most of swans' audience was
sometimes louder than low's playing.

was really amazed at how rockingly they
often come across on their albums, and
like you, how incredibly popular they've
become.

read an interview with them not
too long ago. they're mormon,
and apparently such heavy
potheads, one of them had
to go into recovery for his
weed usage, lest it break
up the band...

low are very mysterious,
yo.

like the wind and shit...
 

soundslike1981

Well-known member
They're possibly the only "indie rock band" I follow. It's very rare to see such slow and steady boilers in rock music--and for my money they've been on an almost uninterrupted ascent since about 1997. They paint in subtle tones that I don't really associate with relatively straight-forward rock combos. And they certianly have never been trendspotters--yet for me they recall things as seemingly divergent as the Carter Family and Brian Eno.

I actually interviewed Alan Sparhawk a few years ago, and he was very gracious about the whole thing. I wasn't writing for a publication, I just wanted to ask some questions and expressed a vague confidence that somebody, even if just some tiny zine, would publish the results. With so little "return" promised, he still wrote really thoughtful answers during a tour.

http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews/low-021030.shtml


Have you heard his new solo thing? I really want to, it sounds like it could be a real winner.
 

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
The only thing I have by them is Secret Name, the album they did with Steve Albini, and it's a fucking excellent record. Great acoustics, very real world & edgy.

True story - about 4 years ago I was listening to Secret Name on headphones in bed before sleep, and that night I had an amazing, vivid dream about a big derelict factory in the midwest which was haunted by the ghosts of students who worked nights there in the early 60s to pay for college, and they sang songs about the factory & the lives they never led (which were the songs from secret name, rewritten by my subconscious). It wasnt clear if they were actually dead, or if this was the ghost of thier young selves mourning lost possibilities in their own lives and in america generally. One of the eeriest, most evocative dreams I've ever had.

I really associate Secret Name with midwest childhoods - I listened to it a lot when I read The Corrections, and I read Middlesex by Geoffrey Eugenides recently and found myself putting it on again.

But I'm interested that they did Things We Lost... for Don't Look Back - so is it the general critical consensus that it's their best album, or maybe just the best known?
 
their live sound is utterly pristine- as in immaculately clean and just like the studio stuff. to do it they spend mebbe 3 or 4 times as long as other indie bands do to set up and check sound.

i didn't think i'd appreciate the albini produced material as i thought he'd bludgeon them with his approach, but hey it's good.
 

soundslike1981

Well-known member
Gabba Flamenco Crossover said:
The only thing I have by them is Secret Name, the album they did with Steve Albini, and it's a fucking excellent record. Great acoustics, very real world & edgy.

True story - about 4 years ago I was listening to Secret Name on headphones in bed before sleep, and that night I had an amazing, vivid dream about a big derelict factory in the midwest which was haunted by the ghosts of students who worked nights there in the early 60s to pay for college, and they sang songs about the factory & the lives they never led (which were the songs from secret name, rewritten by my subconscious). It wasnt clear if they were actually dead, or if this was the ghost of thier young selves mourning lost possibilities in their own lives and in america generally. One of the eeriest, most evocative dreams I've ever had.

I really associate Secret Name with midwest childhoods - I listened to it a lot when I read The Corrections, and I read Middlesex by Geoffrey Eugenides recently and found myself putting it on again.

But I'm interested that they did Things We Lost... for Don't Look Back - so is it the general critical consensus that it's their best album, or maybe just the best known?


'Secret Name' remains my favourite album, partly probably due to nostalgic association, but I really just love how it's recorded. But it does seem that 'Things We Lost' is the concensus pick. It's good and all, but it's actually made probably the least impact on me of any of their records. It just seemed to be the first one they got proper attention for.

I actually quite like 'Trust' and the most recent one has really grown on me. Their b-sides compendium box is actually quite nice, too--they've done some fabulous covers, "lowifications" of things. The EP they did with Spring Heel Jack is also quite lovely--some artists would kill to make an entire career in that vein, highly overlooked. They sound wonderful in a slightly less "organic" context. The thing they did with Dirty Three is quite good, too. Really it's only their earliest few albums which don't move me as much, which is neat becaue I actually came into them with their second record, and thought it was fantastic at the time.
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
I absolutely love Low, but I was a little bit disappointed with the 'things we lost in the fire' gig, as they didnt seem that comfortable on stage, not much interaction with the audience, and they didn't seem as musically tight as other times i've seen them.

also, did they have a different bass player or has zak sally grown his hair and generally looking pretty different...?

"trust" is probably my favourite low album, and their cover of "transmission" on the EP of the same name really has to be heard.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Dug out the Transmission cover yesterday, and you're absolutely right - it's magnificent. As a cover entirely reinterpreting the original, it's up there with the best, and, as with other JD covers, lays bare the sublime quality of the songwriting.

I've been very taken with what I've heard of Low (their particular slowcore sound reminds me of prime Galaxie 500 more than any other), and will make one of the early albums my next purchase.
 

Ned

Ruby Tuesday
I think Zak Sally is on hiatus because of mental health issues so they've got a new bassist.
 

turtles

in the sea
soundslike1981 said:
They're possibly the only "indie rock band" I follow.
Same here, interestingly. Especially considering I'm otherwise on a pretty steady diet of house/techno/grime/other bishy-bashy electronic music. Agreed that they seem to have a very "complete" sort of sound, fully self-contained and on their own, passing through the musical world that just happens to get grouped into indie rock.

I'll put my vote in for Things We Lost... though I've actually never got around to hearing Secret Name (for shame! will check it promptly).
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
Ned said:
I think Zak Sally is on hiatus because of mental health issues so they've got a new bassist.

really? thats a shame. thought the bass was rather background at the TWLITF gig - seemed much less like a proper 3 piece.
 

soundslike1981

Well-known member
spackb0y said:
really? thats a shame. thought the bass was rather background at the TWLITF gig - seemed much less like a proper 3 piece.


I thought it was Mr. Sparhawk who'd had the mental issues (I believe bipolar disorder, addiction to marijuana). But maybe Mr. Sally has, too? At one (or maybe two) points I got the impression Zak had split from the group on reasonably amicable terms--and then rejoined--though I thought he'd quit again?


Actually, Alan wrote an incredibly sincere and open note about his illness, which was also something of an exploration/apology for his addiction, on the Low website messageboard (www.chairkickers.com). His unromantic honesty was 180 degrees the opposite of Rock'N'Roll "apologia/confessional honesty" and I found it really refreshing and endearing. (I'd also recently had my life-long best friend have a breakdown attributed to bipolar disorder, so maybe it was on my mind).



Have a look at this:

http://www.silbermedia.com/alansparhawk/

From the one track they have available for listen, it sounds a little like Neil Young's 'Deadman Soundtrack' meets an Eno/Fripp collab, but with some muscles. Aggressively ambient, not at all "solo guitar" a la virtuosso---guitar being made to sound like all sorts of things except a guitar. Though I'm not anti-guitar to begin with, just anti-boring-ass-show-off-rock'n'roll-or-boring-as-farts-indie-strumming-guitar.
 
D

dubversion

Guest
soundslike1981 said:
I thought it was Mr. Sparhawk who'd had the mental issues (I believe bipolar disorder, addiction to marijuana). But maybe Mr. Sally has, too? At one (or maybe two) points I got the impression Zak had split from the group on reasonably amicable terms--and then rejoined--though I thought he'd quit again?.


that was my understanding too, and that message Alan posted on the Chairkickers site was pretty upsetting. I saw them just before he 'went off the rails', at the RFH, and while they were absolutely fantastic (probably one of the best times I've ever seen them - the acoustics suited their sound so much), Alan was clearly distracted and troubled. He seemed like he had something he wanted to communicate to the audience but was struggling to rein himself in.

The Koko show was great, but I agree the new bassist doesn't really fill Zak's place.
 

oh-oh

oh-oh
Dont look now

low are a perfect entity, but there's an elephant in the corner- has anyone seen the video to Canada? it reminds me of the kind of thing REM do, that awful, and at the end we see the kids rocking out to our heros. No one looks to Low for parody, which, if i was being charitable, it could be excused as, but really i think it was their serious attempt to cross over. absolutely miserable. it made me sick for a week.
 

oh-oh

oh-oh
oh and...

If i were to pick an album it would be 'the curtain hits the cast', their first. to me they arrived complete and while i'm glad they've kept going they begun with a pattern they cant surpass.
 
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