Low: Classic or classic?

karl brought it up upthread, h/t karl

*gets to "the son, the sun"* these songs are all black holes vibrating at different frequencies

Whoa portishead third??? Curious

it'd be a shame if "rome (always in the dark)" never gets used in a movie trailer

anyway this is gorgeous and weirdly feels like an intuitive endpoint, the way the rhythm of "always trying to work it out" pulls everything inward is just mesmerizing

This thing is so cohesive and flows so expertly that I got too annoyed with the leak's track gaps and had to mix it down to a single 49-minute file before I could let myself relisten

The way the clouds part just long enough for "Dancing And Fire" to peek through relatively unobstructed is *kisses fingers*

i am so excited to hear the rest! glad to hear that the other songs are just as engaging

trying to decide whether this is samey and overproduced or genius

low is at their best writing pop songs imo

Not even trying to defend them when I say that complaining that a Low album is "samey" is wild to me, nearly every Low album is them "trying on" a couple sonic ideas and flexing them to various extremes for 40-60 minutes

haha yeah fair shout actually simon, my gripe is completely moot. i think it's maybe why, even though i love them to bits, i almost never make it through a full play of their LPs. the second halves are often a drag.

obv I find that personally heretical but I get it. this Low shit, it ain't for everybody. it's a motherfuckin vibe

i know the last album i heard from low was ten years ago, but i wasn't expecting this at all. i'm mesmerized.

also the master is disgustingly loud, what's up with that? guess it's bathed in distortion anyway.

also xxp simon -- i was more fussed about the overproduction than the sameyness really. i love alan's guitar tone, and think low have done distortion and production perfectly to date. the distortion on this is the kind of distortion that grows old quickly to my ears. sounds very digital and full of odd harmonics. im sure its intentional. i dunno. its almost annoying, i just want to hear the songs that are hiding behind it.

even though the new record is destined to become one of my favourites - there is the same tension with albums like "drums and guns" where deliberate production choices set that particular song in concrete - and more power to the band for doing that. but the live versions of these new songs necessarily break them open in quite different ways, i genuinely can't wait to hear them again later in the year.

luckily theyre bootleg-friendly: https://archive.org/details/LowMusic - so i can have the jaunty "breaker" as well as the doomy live version on hand.

wow, yeah...hard to tell if this is supposed all sound like this or whether they did something to it to mark the leaks. at least one song is pretty unlistenable to me. but there is beauty in it.

p meticulous marking then!

it's not marking, since the officially released singles are of the same production. matt h is otm tho -- hearing them live will shed some light.

listening to their first couple of LPs today. man, i wish kramer was still producing records.

OK im decided. the use of compression on this LP in accordance with its dynamic range is fucking phenomenal.

I noticed that too - the quiet parts are *actually* quiet and not just in comparison to the walls of noise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7088HRmhNaE

wasted good silverware on ya.

"Disarray" is now officially available:

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

Awesome.

Needs a remix EP imho

How I love that Transmission cover - 2nd song - from the 1996 show. By playing it slower they make it better as it lasts longer. That simple trick works like a charm here.

For you polite non-leak-listeners, now streaming at NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/06/644584017/first-listen-low-double-negative

This seriously has to be one of their 2 or 3 best albums ever.

i'm not polite, but i was kind of just waiting until i could stream it somewhere, thanks!

holy shit this album

otm

heavier than a death in the family

"tempest" is like falling between two vibrating pixels

effect of the whole album is like listening in on someone's nightmare

yeah it has such a profound cumulative effect that in retrospect I wish they hadn't released any advance tracks at all (though releasing the opening trio was a smart compromise)

this makes at least two dark & (spatially) deep albums w a song titled "tempest" this decade

the other being koi no yokan hell yeah

yesterday i saw 'first reformed' and 'double negative' came to my mind all the time. after week listening to it i'm still speechless.

Crushing.

Wow, this is not starting out like I expected it to.

Yeah, I listened to it yesterday and loved it. Looking forward to my first cold sad winter night listen, it’ll be absolutely perfect then.

Completely blown away by this. Who does this twelve albums into their career?

neil young released "hawks and doves" for album 12

That's quite a good album!

Others:
Joni Mitchell - Dog Eat Dog (oh dear)
Bob Dylan - Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (never listened to it)
Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street (!)

I see more UK & European dates have been added to the tour for the new year, including a Glasgow gig in January. Yay!

This is amazing. The way they alter abrasive, sound sculpture pieces with their spiritual, harmonic tunes is absolutely breathtaking. There is a lot to bite on here.

longtime Low-ambivalent human here to say: what the FUCK

what the FUCK

otm

I don't know why people are so surprised by this, since they've experimented with drone/noise/electronic elements plenty before. Not always on their albums, I suppose.

I really want to love the album but it hasn't really clicked for me yet, hoping I just need to hear it in the right context. Mimi does sound amazing on the ones where she's singing lead.

Yeah, I also feel like this album is a logical extension of some of the ideas they were pursuing on Ones and Sixes, which I also thought was a super-strong album.

I'm surprised by the notion that people who have long been ambivalent about Low would suddenly be won over by this album - it strikes me as standing in relation to their prior work in much the same way as the new Jon Hassell album does to his (Hassell is also a good answer for "who pulls this kind of trick some 12 albums or more into his career?") - an invigorating incorporation of new elements to expand the existing blueprint rather than replace it wholesale.

fwiw, i'm not saying i'm won over, although being ambivalent and then maybe not ambivalent might imply as much.

i'm not even sure i'm won over yet. this is more my experience:

i know the last album i heard from low was ten years ago, but i wasn't expecting this at all. i'm mesmerized.

― Nourry, Thursday, July 5, 2018 2:31 AM (two months ago)

basically i'm saying: "I listened to Curtain and Lost in the Fire and Great Destroyer several times each and thought I knew what Low was but this album is not what I thought Low was"