the
LOW commotion
by d.n.l
“So I took my guitar and I threw down
some chords and some words I could sing without
shame...”-“Death of a Salesman”
So humble, so hearfelt, so Low. For well over
a decade this trio from Duluth has been a part
of my life (and many other devotees' as well)
and it's been a really wonderful trip seeing
them transcend the little slowcore bubble they
were originally trapped in. Who knew then that
they would be the ones to come out on top as
opposed to, say, the Red House Painters, Codeine,
or Idaho. So many fine records and tours (and
two children) have been produced by this hard-working
team: Alan Sparhawk and his wife Mimi Parker
(plus bassist friend Zak Sally).
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| photo by Karl
Raschke |
Still, it comes as some surprise to see a long
and deeply personal letter from Alan on the
group's website message board recently, explaining
his reasons for their canceling the summer wing
of their tour. It would feel exploitive to go
into why they did, but it's suddenly so obvious
that they deserve some time off to deal with
it all before even starting to speculate where
Low will go from here.
Still, from the sound of their latest album,
the Great Destroyer, their first with Sub Pop
Records, it's as though much has changed all
at once--when, actually, for anyone who's been
listening for the long haul, there have been
signs all along the road. From as far back as
“Prisoner” from the sessions for
their third album (When the Curtain Hits the
Cast) to the breakout of Dinosaur Act from 2001
and their contribution to the soundtrack to
The Mothman Prophecies, but especially in their
last album for Kranky Records, 2002's Trust.
“It's all something that we've been hinting
at or moving toward at some point," says
Mimi.
"Honestly, I don't think this record's
really that different.” Zak adds, “I
think it is in certain ways, but we feel it
on a more personal level than we do like when
people say 'you've changed completely!' and
we're like, well, no!”
What led to this change? “We had bunch
of songs that were probably more what people
would expect, and in the end we kind of wanted
to be somewhat more bold,” says Mimi.
Alan pipes in, finally: “We kind of talked
about being...let's just do it...I think coming
to the ten year point realization of 'you know
what? We've been doing this for over ten years.
We can do whatever we want!' It's not so much
what the people tell us, it's kind of like us
telling ourselves! Let's just make music, look
at all the time we took chances before and it
was cool! Let's just throw the rules out.”
I suggest that there was a time they could've
gone another way and become the new Peter, Paul
and Mary or something. Instead, they came up
with the long, atmospheric “Do You Know
How to Waltz,” a song recently recognized
by WIRE magazine as being one of the most significant
contributions to the art of songcraft in recent
history.
Perhaps the band's evolution can be traced
through their choices in producers, from Kramer
on their first two, Steve Fisk on their third,
Steve Albini on several others, to Tchad Blake
on Trust and, finally, Dave Fridmann on their
latest. How do they see the evolution?
“When we went in the studio with Kramer,
at first, we were very naive,” Mimi offers.
I tell them that when I interviewed Alan back
in '95 he said they really wanted to work with
Brian Eno. “We still say that!”
Mimi says with a laugh. I relate that I hinted
to Fridmann several years ago in an interview
that he was kind of the new Brian Eno, and he
seemed both flattered and uncomfortable with
that comparison.
“Well, I don't know, I think Dave's his
own thing, he's carved out something unique,”
Alan implores. “I don't think there's
one single person you could say he's the second
generation of; obviously the records that have
been made for the last thirty or forty years
pointed to the way people are making records
now. He's definitely found his own thing. He's
not taking some old tricks and bringing them
into the now. I never got any sense that he's
being reverential to anything.”
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