Low - 'Ones and Sixes' (September 2015)

"What Part of Me" from the upcoming album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exxRz-iVBlc

Amazon blurb:

Ones and Sixes is the new album from the Duluth-based trio of Alan Sparhawk, Mimi Parker and Steve Garrington, collectively known as Low. Ones and Sixes was co-produced by Low and BJ Burton at Justin Vernon’s April Base Studios in Eau Claire, WI. “In our 20+ years of writing songs, I’ve learned that no matter how escapist, divergent, or even transcendent the creative process feels, the result is more beholden to what is going on at the moment. It’s hard to admit that one is so influenced by what is in front of us. Doesn’t it come from something magical and far away? No, it comes from here. It comes from now. I’m not going to tell you what this record is about because I have too much respect for that moment when you come to know it for yourself.” — Alan Sparhawk, Low.

I spent much of 2002 in Germany, studying literature, collecting new experiences and attempting to process the existential crises so typical of your early 20s. Low – especially their album Things We Lost in the Fire, which I listened to for countless hours – was one of the few bands who helped me along with this. Their slow-growing, minimal, yet expansive songs just beg for introspection. Demand it, even. They cultivate a sense of grandeur and inquiry with their melancholic tone, which, if you’re anything like me, sets you right down in front of the mirror for some much-neglected self-assessment. Is Low somehow The Velvet Undergound’s song “I’ll Be Your Mirror” transubstantiated into band form? As Alan said above, the meanings of the songs are transitory. Even if there was a specific impetus, nothing needs explaining beyond what the song itself reveals. It’s an exercise on Low’s end and, when the music is released, it becomes one for us. Ones and Sixes takes everything Low excels at and dips it in a heavy gold plating of industrial-leaning electronics. This catapults to new and extreme heights the innate beauty their music has always had. It’s a series of contrasts: stunning and menacing, gorgeous and frightening, giving and desperate, and, ultimately, unbearably heavy and unbearably light. From one to six and back again. —Dee Dee Penny (Dum Dum Girls), NYC, June 2015

Track Listing
1. Gentle
2. No Comprende
3. Spanish Translation
4. Congregation
5. No End
6. Into You
7. What Part of Me
8. The Innocents
9. Kid in the Corner
10. Lies
11. Landslide
12. DJ

I've never had any strong feelings about Low one way or the other, but it's impressive how long they've actually lasted. Good for them!

No Comprende:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZfjysllZyg

some discussion on the Low C/D thread. Both advance tracks are strong, and an obvious reaction against the milquetoast Tweedyfied sound of the last album

ahhh this is so good

way more Drums and Guns than anything i think
(which is good w me!)

yeah I'm really digging it, nice mix of maximal and minimal

another track, lies, now up on spotify - is lovely. Can't wait to hear the whole thing.

out today

https://open.spotify.com/album/6UO15kRxOCuNTpA7v98CNI

thx for the subliminal message spotify URL

this is a good album but I'd expect the production and/or reliance on programmed drums to be a dealbreaker for at least part of Low's fanbase

it was already there on Drums & Guns, my favorite Low album. it feels less personal here, but maybe that's just because i've read about how one of the April Base dudes handled it largely on his own.

liking this a lot

The drum machine/programming is precisely the aspect that's keeping me interested in this album.

Excited by this album. I liked them in the mid/late 90s, and then from the 'Songs for a Dead Pilot' EP on they just got better and better, culminating with 'Drums and Guns'. The last couple albums I found I enjoyed just fine when they were on, but they didn't leave a lasting impression. So while I worry about Alan Sparhawks happiness a little whenever they veer back into this darker territory, at least he wrangles his best art out of it.

Kind of reminds me of their 'Bombscare' EP with Spring Heel Jack from 2000, which for some reason rarely gets mentioned but is what really convinced me they were only getting better, after 'Secret Name,' which is probably their most beautiful album but could've become well-work territory if they'd just stayed there.

Don't know where I'd rank it in the overall discography but I really appreciate the boldness of the sound. Alan's voice has barely changed over the last while, but Mimi seems to get subtly stronger with every album. I wonder if we'll ever get the solo album from her that Alan teased a while back.

alan's voice has changed plenty, i think; he's more often in that strong, kinda resounding voice, or otherwise his rad metal voice, cf landslide, compared to the high whisper of the first however many records

i am enjoying this lp btw
+ yes bombscare ep is the bomb

Yah really enjoying this so far. Mimi always sounds amazing over stark rhythms.

They played a bunch of the new songs at the record store across the street yesterday. I haven't heard the album so don't know how the production alters the songs, but hearing them played in the usual electric guitar/bass/live drums format, they sounded like really good Low songs, nothing too surprising.

I just got around to this and I'm loving it - they're working/recording with someone new on this?

BJ Burton. He's worked with a lot of the artists in the Bon Iver circle: Aero Flynn, Sylvan Esso, Marijuana Deathsquads, Lizzo, The Staves, etc.

This album is beautiful

just got a subwoofer for my nice system and holy fuck there is some crazy deep bass on this i'd never heard before, for ex."Gentle" has these suuuuper deep like EDM type bass hits

also I think after this long and generally pretty much stellar catalog (i think the worst you can say about a low album is that it's not as excellent as their best but i don't think anything they've done has been less than solidly good) you have to start really considering them one of the great rock bands of all time

those bass hits are magic

you have to start really considering them one of the great rock bands of all time

yeah really only The Invisible Way is notably sub-par and even that has a few gorgeous songs

it's really stupid that I've only just now started paying attention to Low after years of friends raving about how great they are

you gotta hear Trust, it's their gothiest

currently in the middle of The Great Destroyer, will cue that one up next

whoa, just decided to put this on and this thread happened to pop up. great minds think alike UMS

yeah this record owns

you have to start really considering them one of the great rock bands of all time

on another thread someone posted that if there were ever an intergalactic battle of the bands, that Low should be the representative for planet earth. that always stuck with me

Does that mean something deeper than "Low rules" though?

in our darkest hour
when earth will be destroyed for not rocking enough
it will take the unlikeliest of heroes to save us all

they'd be a great choice for emissaries to Kolob for sure

whole catalog is great but I'm a "Things We Lost in the Fire" boi 4 lyfe

#dinosauract

'in metal' in my jam

is my jam

it's really stupid that I've only just now started paying attention to Low after years of friends raving about how great they are

― Very selfish, and very ironic (DJP), Wednesday, January 13, 2016 12:39 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i've never really dug into them either

i don't listen to 'the invisible way' much either but this is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfNLtUUEiGI

also you know youtube is a tough neighborhood when comments on a LOW song devolve quickly like this

James Aubrey 1 year ago
Voice like Damon Aluburn, not a bad thing

EnosEverything 5 months ago
+James Aubrey Jesus Christ... How long would it have taken to Google BLUR to actually find out that DAMON ALBARN is spelt DAMON ALBARN... You lazy dumb twat.

oldUmanUshea 4 months ago
+EnosEverything lol your dumb

EnosEverything 4 months ago
+oldUmanUshea And you must be a totally ignorant cunt as well you braindead sack of camel shit... .

James Aubrey 3 months ago
Enoseverythin ass hole n did yo notice I misplele tings 👂 as well u knob jockey n I put my cash that u got a tiny tiny thing n Havre no reel pals dudums yours James Robert Aubrey ps I pps don't ppps care!!!!😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃✌✌✌✌✌✌out u up tight twat

James Aubrey 3 months ago
You got hit by a tree branch n complained for knot gettin seen quick enough. Spell in n grammar wrong again!!# enos everththin 😂😂😂😂😂 do u dream of Eno as well u doch!!

oldUmanUshea 3 months ago
+EnosEverything you suck at insulting.

EnosEverything 3 months ago
+oldUmanUshea Another useless gonad sucking son of a slag....Go and piss in a plastic cup

heard 'Broadway (So Many People)' a few weeks ago and literally stopped what I was doing, sat down, and decided this was the year I was going to work through their catalog.
saw them once live, it was a troubled performance but oddly compelling.

weirdly I started wanting to explore more Low stuff due to "Girl Loves Me" on Blackstar sounding like it came from a universe adjacent to Low

i voted for 'no comprende' in the tracks poll this year

is low a listen-to-in-order type band or is it better to start with the universally acknowledged as better albums

saw them once live, it was a troubled performance but oddly compelling.

― campreverb, Wednesday, January 13, 2016 2:31 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I haven't seen them for a few yrs now, but they are without a doubt the prickliest live band I've ever seen, esp in the Zak Sally era when he'd just face his amp.

So good.

you can kinda dive in wherever imo. like my first was the curtain hits the cast followed by the great destroyer

xpost

hadn't seen the "Plastic Cup" video before, Mimi looks awesome but wtf is Alan doing with his head

with low i think you can kinda just jump in anywhere you want, there's not a single less-than-good album in their discography. i think people were generally not excited abt C'Mon or The Invisible Way but i don't necessarily think they're markedly worse.

yeah there's no bad place to start with them really, though some are sonic outliers to some degree (Drums and Guns, Great Destroyer)

my first low was 'things we lost in the fire' and then 'secret name'. both are great but they grabbed me for good with 'trust', which is where they started to rock out a bit more.

TWLITF is my fave like i said. but idk, they're like neil young in there's no "wrong" version of low.

Trust is a good one for newbies not only because it rules but because it touches on everything they'd done up to that point as well as signposting their noisier stuff to come

at one point a friend had made a compilation of all their super slowcore stuff, which I loved, and of course, lost. But that Broadway song convinced me to start digging into the Sub Pop material.
their Springsteen cover is breathtaking imo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWIorQ_Fgxk

Drums & Guns still my favorite. C'mon is underrated.

I still haven't properly listened to everything pre-D&G, but it's nice knowing that it's there.

they're one of the few artists where i've got to run to the store and grab up the new one the day its released.

i got this version of Ones and Sixes on vine, with the owl outer sleevel:

https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t51.2885-15/s320x320/e35/11934693_1702640856621882_286175196_n.jpg

*vinyl

their Rihanna cover is great too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lchC5sQepqE

their version of "Lord Can You Hear Me" might be the definitive one. They're a great covers band.

Low 4ever

thanks guys!

i haven't heard c'mon but i want to at some point bc "try to sleep" is one of their best ever songs. forever getting around to exploring this discography totally bc i'm pretty sure i'd have a nervous breakdown somewhere in the middle

oh fuck this means you've never heard "Especially Me" which is maybe my favorite Mimi song

as it happens, c'mon is the only one i've got, though i haven't really listened much --- i think i used to have TWLITF and songs for a dead pilot but they both got lost in the fire the purchase of a new computer

oh fuck this means you've never heard "Especially Me" which is maybe my favorite Mimi song

love this one

joining in on the Low rulez chorus, they're basically the only band that i will see any time they come to town. 7 or 8 shows and not a single dud, highlights include an acoustic set in a beautiful church

someone help me out with this - they did a guest vocal on an ambient electronic track a year or two ago and I've been itching to hear it again but I forget who the principal artist was.

C'mon is incredible! I think it's my favorite Low record.

Trentemøller - the dream? Xpost

that's the one! thanks.

it's really hard to write a song about parenthood that's beautiful and touching and grim and maybe a bit macabre at the same time but they really did it on "In Metal"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdH3mTpjq-U

wait i HAVE heard "especially me"! i don't remember when, but i remember thinking at the time that emmylou harris should cover it

some days Mimi is one of my fave vocalists.

i love how their first song from their first album is so perfect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ako3beDuaO0

^and drummer, esp. live

everyone otm in this lovely revive. what a great band!

a few things:

1. low is the best band on earth
2. this is their best album since drums & guns
3. this album has the deepest bass i've heard in indie rock
4. the tree on the front and back of the LP are different

I'm a Secret Name dude

3. this album has the deepest bass i've heard in indie rock

the Mimi-sung cover of "Let's Stay Together" they put out for valentine's day rules

https://open.spotify.com/track/01O62ifzWuVGhZbVnQWSKU?si=5XzBzZFERAe5k2OjQ9sD0g

Thx for reminding me to go back to this. 'Landslide' is my fav this time around, it's the 10 min vamp-to-infinity track a la 'Nothing But Heart'.

omg the bass in "lets say together" lol

Time for a new album, maybe? They're touring next month so maybe something's in the works. Would be great to hear some new stuff. I've been playing their recent albums a lot lately and while I still can't really get behind Ones and Sixes I think C'mon is a masterpiece.

In other news, Sparhawk is playing in a Velvet Underground tribute band. That would be something to see.

I think C'mon is a masterpiece.

They played here a few months ago with a half dozen new tunes. Album out later this year.

C’mon is absolutely the high-watermark of their current era.

"spanish translation" is all-time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbSazRxrflw

A splendid winter album, this is.

A splendid winter album, this just about every Low album is.