Deixa-me rir...

Caros Audiophiles, last week I went to see a band from Duluth Minnesota called Low. Although they have been in existence for 20 years, their music has simply not been on my radar. I took a chance after being intrigued recently by one song, whIch one I don't even recall.

Before the concert, behind the stage there are two screens that project giant digital countdowns which suggest an explosive opening.

But Low, in name and in musical style, turn out to be intimate low-key minimalists. Just three musicians, a guitar with small amplifiers, a tiny drum kit, a keyboard and a bass guitar.

There is a reverential hush as they unassumingly walk onto the stage. Barely acknowledging the audience, Alan Sparhawk begins gently to caress his guitar, while his wife Mimi Parker pads her drums, often with brushes, and Steve Garrington adds dolorous piano chords and bass guitar, the tempo slow but rhythmic and library-quiet. Delicate and precise.

Complimenting this meditative soundscape, the two screens begin to project archive film and pictures 

of majestic landscapes, mountains and forests, of urban architecture and slow-moving transportation. Atmospheric and hypnotic.

Sparhawk provides most of the lead vocals, but my favourite moments are the songs sung by Mimi Parker. Her voice is so tremulous and breathtakingly beautiful that you want to savour every phrase.

Then sometimes, unexpectedly, there are more dramatic moments, when the guitar suddenly screeches with feedback and effects in unison with a buzzing bass guitar. As Sparhawk tells the audience near the end, he can “hear the moon turn to blood”.

Low are promoting their new album The Invisible Way. As Alan Sparhawk explained in an interview: 

"The songs are about intimacy, the drug war, the class war, plain old war war, archaeology and love. This time we've used piano, lots of piano...and an acoustic guitar. We've made many records, and you know ourmodus operandi.: slow, quiet, sometimes melancholy, and, we hope, sometimes pretty...  Please enjoy what we made. We think it’s beautiful.” 

It was indeed beautiful. Time seemed to stand still. I was mesmerised, enchanted. It was an intoxicating, almost transcendent evening. Low are a revelation.

And the love we all need
Was running hard to be free
It got caught up in the forest
By the branches on the trees

By the creatures of the daylight
And the beasts of the night
Then the mountains and the rivers
Took their toll on its lean

It went stumbling down a hillside
Where it landed on its knees
On its knees, on its knees
On its knees – End scene

And the love we all need
Once relented from its speed
We adored it and abused it
Til it brought us to our knees
To our knees, to our knees
To our knees





A proxima.

PO