White Roses, My God
Alan Sparhawk
Released: 2024
Label: Sub Pop
Producer: Nat Harvie
Hey What
Released: 2021
Label: Sub Pop
Producer: BJ Burton
When Low started out in the early ’90s, you could’ve mistaken their slowness for lethargy, when in reality it was a mark of almost supernatural intensity. Like 2018’s Double Negative, Hey What explores new extremes in their sound, mixing Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker's naked harmonies with blocks of noise and distortion that hover in drumless space—tracks such as “Days Like These” and “More” sound more like 18th-century choral music than 21st-century indie rock. Their faith—they’ve been practicing Mormons most of their lives—has never been so evident, not in content so much as purity of conviction: Nearly 30 years after forming, they continue to chase the horizon with a fearlessness that could make anyone a believer.
Double Negative
Released: 2018
Label: Sub Pop
Producer: BJ Burton
It’s hard to believe that a band as seemingly simple as Low continues to evolve a quarter century into their career, but here we are. Their second album with Bon Iver producer B.J. Burton, Double Negative takes the band’s basic sound (slow, spare, but taut with drama) and fills the space between notes with ambient rumbling, often turning the music into a kind of palimpsest—a beautiful song hidden inside crumbling sound. If anything, what makes the album so unsettling isn’t its sense of silence, but of continuous noise, so subtle you might mistake it for a distant train or footfalls in the hall. Still, the anchor is the writing and interplay of Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk, whose best songs—Parker’s “Fly,” Sparhawk’s “Dancing and Blood”—explore the human condition with a frailty and sense of low-grade horror that has always set them apart.
A Lifetime of Temporary Relief
Released: 2004
Label: Chairkickers Music
Ones and Sixes
Released: 2015
Label: Sub Pop
Producer: BJ Burton
The Invisible Way
Released: 2013
Label: Sub Pop
Producer: BJ Burton
The decision to record The Invisible Way at Jeff Tweedy's Chicago studio helped ensnare Tweedy for the producer role and make this album the most singer/songwriter–like album of Low's slo-core career. Mimi Parker handles five lead vocals (previously unheard of), with "Waiting" giving longtime fans an idea of what Americana ballads would sound like done the Low way. Of course, the Low way in 2013 is but a distant non-echo of the band's heavily reverbed past, where the beauty was in the mystic tones that sounded as if they were bouncing off of a cathedral's walls. Low's songs have been slowly rising to the surface with instrumental and vocal parts more clearly defined, but never quite like this. "Clarence White" could be a tribute to the former Byrds member, but the lyrics suggest something less quantifiable. "So Blue" actually threatens to cruise before the band falls away to better expose the harmonies. "Just Make It Stop" sounds like an AM radio piano-based pop tune. "Holy Ghost" mixes gospel and the blues as only Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker can design it.
C'Mon
Released: 2011
Label: Sub Pop
Producer: Matt Beckley
Minnesota’s Low are one of the finest groups to navigate their way into the 21st century. Their slo-core roots, where every note took a lifetime to resolve into the next, have been spiked and expanded to allow for additional colors and approaches. Their ninth album, C’mon, was co-produced and mixed by Matt Beckley, whose name has appeared on recordings by Avril Lavigne and Katy Perry. Beckley brings brightness and dares Alan Sparhawk to bring his vocals to the front of the mix. “Witches” is phenomenal. The bass guitar is deep and sturdy. The guitars are shiny and metallic as they jangle into space. And Sparhawk sings with a newfound conviction. Additional musicians, including Wilco’s Nels Cline and violinist Caitlin Moe, create a plusher sound for tracks such as “Done” and the sweetly harmonic “Try to Sleep.” The naked ache of “Nothing But Heart” is reminiscent of the Byrds’ Gene Clark’s solo work. “Something’s Turning Over” throws over slo-core for a Mamas and Papas-type pop vocal ensemble piece. The album is a new career highpoint.
Drums and Guns
Released: 2007
Label: Sub Pop
Producer: Dave Fridmann
Nothing in this Duluth, Minnesota trio’s past prepares you for the sinister noir of their eighth full-length album. Teaming up with Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann, who oddly toughened up their sound with greater convention on 2005’s The Great Destroyer, the group head into an instrumental netherworld where time ticks by in slow, erratic degrees and a disturbing sense of unease permeates the feedback-drenched guitars and loitering keyboards. The minimalist instrumental backing serves as an austere backdrop for the rare vocals that emit from a faraway campsite where a human sacrifice wouldn’t be out of question. These are songs about death and murder where the blood still smells fresh. A hint of Tom Waits’ mechanical rhythm structures lingers in the disruptive, slow churning rhythms. An Arabian exoticism informs “Sandinista.” A deliberately unfunky groove works over “Always Fade.” Séance chants spike the foreboding gloom of “Dust On the Window.” Low have made the soundtrack to a film that may never exist. But it should conjure up some pretty grisly visuals in your imagination should you attempt to meditate to these tunes that redefine the “murder ballad” genre.
The Great Destroyer
Released: 2005
Label: Sub Pop
Producer: Dave Fridmann
How many bands make their best album ten years and seven discs into their career? Not many, but with The Great Destroyer, Low may have turned this trick. More a natural progression in the Duluth, Minnesota trio's development from one-trick slowcore ponies than a jarring reinvention, The Great Destroyer underscores Low's established strengths and sheds light on some new attributes, too. The austere, stately likes of "Silver Rider" and "On the Edge Of" sound most similar to Low's early work, while the sprawling "Broadway" and ominous "Monkey" seem to blaze new trails. Somewhere in the middle lies "California," a tuneful, propulsive and finely sung pop gem that comes off classic from the first note. The album was tracked and mixed in part by Dave Fridmann, producer extraordinaire for the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev.
Trust
Released: 2002
Label: Rough Trade
In The Fishtank 7
Released: 2001
Label: Konkurrent
Things We Lost In The Fire
Released: 2001
Label: Rough Trade
The Exit Papers
Released: 2000
Label: Temporary Residence Limited
Secret Name
Released: 1999
Label: Kranky
Christmas
Released: 1999
Label: Tugboat Records
Songs for a Dead Pilot
Year: 1997
Label: Kramer
Transmission
Release: 1996
Label: Vernon Yard Recordings
The Curtain Hits The Cast
Release: 1994
Label: Vernon Yard Recordings
Producer: Kramer
Long Division
Release: 1995
Label: Vernon Yard Recordings
Producer: Kramer
I Could Live In Hope
Release: 1994
Label: Vernon Yard Recordings
Producer: Kramer
Low was something an anomaly in alternative music when it released its 1994 debut, I Could Live in Hope. The band's music—quiet, restrained, and precise—was the antithesis of the waves of distortion and emotional bombast that characterized grunge’s second wave. Singer and songwriter Alan Sparhawk initially conceived Low as something of a conceptual experiment. While rehearsing with their more typically aggressive indie outfit Zen Identity, Sparhawk and bassist John Nichols began working up minimal, quiet improvisations during downtime. The project soon took on a life of its own, and with the addition of singer and percussionist Mimi Parker, Low became a self-sufficient musical unit. Though the music press was quick to dub Low’s music "slowcore" or "sadcore," these terms don't capture the musical and emotional dynamism of these 11 carefully arranged songs. Though not as lush or assured as some of Low’s later work, I Could Live in Hope effectively lays the template for the rest of the band's career, and is, in its own small and self-contained way, a near-perfect album.
