Low: Classic or classic?

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"

The only thing I don't like about this album is that it makes Ones and Sixes retroactively sound like a tentative, tame attempt at what this album is up to.

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"

― alpine static, Monday, September 10, 2018 11:48 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that's fair - this album makes more sense in the context of Drums and Guns and Ones and Sixes and some stuff they put on EPs over the years.

i only heard 'ones and sixes' after 'double negative' and now i get where this is coming from. but i'm still mesmerized. and it is possibly my favourite record of the year so far (with the new jon hassell and opn's age of).
i'm kinda of ashamed that in the last years i stopped paying much attention to their records. such a stupid "decision".
in the end of the month i plan seeing them live (the last time I saw them was in 2007!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRoIbBbJx4U

Best thing they've done since 'Drums & Guns' and the 'Bombscare' EP 18 (!) years ago.

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?")

Since I made that comment, I'll answer. I was a consistent listener up to The Great Destroyer, but outside of the occasional "Drone Not Drones" show I've been one of the ambivalent - dutifully listening to each new album since, but never making a deep enough connection to keep coming back. Maybe I wanted them to go further?

Forgotten but great track - "Half Light" from the Mothman Prophecies soundtrack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY-LaFHAfQc

I'll be the first to admit I didn't pay close attention to the last two, but this new one is so incredible it makes me think either a) I should have listened closer or b) they were indeed forgettable, because I doubt they were as memorable/amazing as this one. Getting ... Depeche Mode vibes here?

ones and sixes is an awesome record

Other vibes I'm getting from the new one is ... Fennesz? I also suspect this might be the best, prettiest album my family might make me turn off.

Or, like, Wolfgang Voigt?

The new record, and especially the way it starts off, reminds me of Microphones' Mt. Eerie record. Crawling from out of the rubble and noise to find a pitch-perfect, pastoral and awe-inspiring beauty in quietness and precision. It's everything and more you could want from Low.

xxp you should've been listening closer imo. what's so remarkable to me about this album is that it manages to be top 3 in a band with consistently excellent output

I was a consistent listener up to The Great Destroyer, but outside of the occasional "Drone Not Drones" show I've been one of the ambivalent - dutifully listening to each new album since, but never making a deep enough connection to keep coming back. Maybe I wanted them to go further?

I admit this is kinda where I've been at, and ever since the leak earlier this year the sheer avalanche of praise has kicked in my...I will never call it 'contrarian,' but simply my 'okay, I'm sure it's great so that actually means I can wait to get around to this' reflex. (Which has kept my sanity more than once over the years -- rather than rushing into something which I'm sure I'll like I'd rather get to it when the impulse strikes.) That said everyone mentioning about how it suits the current sociopolitical situation has left me even more guarded; I specifically avoided ANOHNI's album the other year for that reason, but unlike ANOHNI I geniunely like Low's music and have from the get-go so I'll approach this a little more warmly. Still, though.

enh I think the "this is the Low album about Our Moment!!" or whatever argument doesn't hold up at all

the sonics are more blwon-out but it's no more emotionally fraught than say Trust

That said everyone mentioning about how it suits the current sociopolitical situation has left me even more guarded

these people are wrong

Good to know!

i compared it to twin peaks season 3 the other day (a stupid comparison but one i can't get out of my head) which can either be read as "of the moment" or not, but the former is prob the least interesting lens through which to view it

i guess one could make the argument that the sonics reflect the sociopolitical feeling of the moment. but that could really be said about most music

I think the "this is the Low album about Our Moment!!" or whatever argument doesn't hold up at all

actually thinking about it now, drums & guns was an 'of the moment' album too in the wake of 9/11. that's also their best album

i compared it to twin peaks season 3 the other day (a stupid comparison but one i can't get out of my head) which can either be read as "of the moment" or not, but the former is prob the least interesting lens through which to view it

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Tuesday, September 11, 2018 5:01 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess 'the tempest' would be episode 8?
stupidly, when i hear the album i can only think about paul schrader's first reformed.

the oppressive atmosphere this album transmits is one which seems to me be very much of the moment

I guess cause sonics aside it's so much of a piece with every Low album since the debut? Idk I find their music has such a timeless, totemic quality that I hesitate to forge associations like that. (Then again I'm also hesitant to see the current political moment as being totally distinct from what came before, so...)

(Then again I'm also hesitant to see the current political moment as being totally distinct from what came before, so...)

yeah this is mostly it in general

Then again I'm also hesitant to see the current political moment as being totally distinct from what came before, so...

not really, maybe, yes, sure. but these are all things that built up over decades anyway

and don't seem to have much to do with the new low album unless you're projecting hard onto it

which is honestly fine

what brad said

Can the Low experts talk about other precursors to this album in their discography that more casual fans might've missed (hinted at by a couple of people earlier)?

ones and sixes, drums and guns, bombscare

btw thanks elvis for posting "half light" upthread, a version of low i had never heard before

it reminds me of "down by the water" kinda

they have so many great odds and ends, I hope one day they make a worthy rarities/loosies comp (too much of A Lifetime of Temporary Relief is inessential)

Also the Drones Not Drones thing people have mentioned: https://drone-not-drones.bandcamp.com/track/low-2

And some of the Retribution Gospel Choir stuff (esp. earlier on).

xp

wow this is gorgeous. i'm feeling them after not listening for a long time.

is this thing even out or are all you hosers just listening to the low bitrate NPR stream

i'm just listening to a few tracks on bandcamp

low bitrate NPR stream here

out on friday. will be buying.

NPR stream. I haven't listened to their albums since Trust but this seems markedly different from what they were doing before then? There were some noise/drone elements at times but they always struck me as somewhat peripheral to the sound of what was a m/l soft pop/rock band.

yeah it's not like it's really that abrasive, it has a very soft sound imo, richly produced classic rock vibes, harmonies more slick than i remembered

i didn't really catch all that many of the lyrics but i still got this feeling that they somehow seem more honest and less portentous, idk.

It was always there even when it wasn't there

portentousness is sort of their backbone but they seem to have aged well around it

It's not about the abrasive noise/drone you play, it's the abrasive noise/drone you don't play

I'm not saying it's a Merzbow album but it's still pretty surprising to me.

I wouldn't deny that the sound is quite different here (though again it was suggested by some of the tracks on Ones and Sixes), but I feel that the way the band use keyboards and static and processed sounds here (a lot of the arrangements seem to be built on distorted samples of their own vocals) is strongly consistent with their prior general songwriting/arranging approach: especially the way that some of the tracks seem to be almost a grim caricature of sidechain compression with the melodies being obliterated by a regular but slow overwhelming kick like they're constantly disappearing into and re-emerging from a black hole. It's very much a digital counterpart to their original trick of focusing the listener's attention on stark, very slow, endlessly repeated guitar chords.