At Square Lake, amazing setting, stage built on a small family farm, woods around the homestead
Native American singer Joe Rainey Sr. opening with a surprise guest appearance by Andrew Broder doing some heavy bass almost industrial stuff with heavily digitally altered samples of Ojibwe (assuming) chanting, really cool
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 12 September 2021 01:02 (two years ago) link
^Jealous
― that's not my post, Sunday, 12 September 2021 01:53 (two years ago) link
if we ever do a low poll please make the ballots at least 40 places long
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 12 September 2021 02:10 (two years ago) link
all comparisons are futile. low are almost completely individual. they might have their influences and share production values, but they've gone their own way since day one and stuck to it.
― maelin, Sunday, 12 September 2021 03:47 (two years ago) link
i was thinking of running a poll in november, or maybe it should be left until feb/march? how long do we need to let hey what settle in? if anyone else really wants to though i'm happy to leave it to them
― ufo, Sunday, 12 September 2021 04:17 (two years ago) link
Nov sounds good. Though they're on such a streak lately that part of me thinks they'll keep coming out with songs good enough to place in their top 40 (which isn't really a reason to not do the poll now!)
― Vinnie, Sunday, 12 September 2021 05:13 (two years ago) link
I'll have some pix and video to post later but this was one of the most amazing shows I've ever seen
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 12 September 2021 05:17 (two years ago) link
there's a couple of live songs on the youtubes (low square lake, filters -> sort by upload date)
― StanM, Sunday, 12 September 2021 07:10 (two years ago) link
Days Like These pic.twitter.com/BOOESDZTEe— kyle (@solace) September 11, 2021
some more in this thread
― ufo, Sunday, 12 September 2021 07:19 (two years ago) link
hey
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 12 September 2021 10:46 (two years ago) link
what?
― StanM, Sunday, 12 September 2021 10:55 (two years ago) link
Now I have a mental image of Low covering “True Blue” in my head
― a gentle push against my Wonder Bread face (DJP), Sunday, 12 September 2021 12:22 (two years ago) link
Went to both Square Lake shows. Really amazing how their vocals sound just as good live as they do on record. I like pretty much every song on the new LP — it’s rare that a band is putting out some of their best work 30 years into their career
― zacata, Sunday, 12 September 2021 14:16 (two years ago) link
even after double negative i can barely believe they put out a song like "hey"
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 12 September 2021 14:58 (two years ago) link
Yeah that's the song of the album for me. I mean, a very strong album overall, but that song's in a different stratosphere
― Vinnie, Sunday, 12 September 2021 15:06 (two years ago) link
yeah “hey” is the one that stopped me in my tracks when listening to the album
― donna rouge, Sunday, 12 September 2021 16:44 (two years ago) link
"Ones and Sixes," I think that came out when I was (stupidly) at my most Low ambivalent, where I somehow still hadn't quite processed their genius. Probably the album that came before it didn't help, honestly.
Although the common sentiment at the time was that Ones & Sixes was an improvement over Invisible Way, I nevertheless feel that Ones & Sixes earned a big reassessment after Double Negative came out.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Sunday, 12 September 2021 21:44 (two years ago) link
So I listened to the new one for the first time today. My kneejerk reaction was that it was great but also hard to compete with the revelation of Double Negative. A few tracks knocked me out instantly—“Hey” is a massive peak in the middle of the record; “Don’t Walk Away” is like a throwback to more traditional Low but it rises so gloriously out of the rest of the album. Still, I felt that a lot of the album was keeping me at arm’s length.
And then, wow, “The Price You Pay.” Might be the best closing track on any Low album. I want to see this band playing in an arena.
Well I sat down after it was over, turned on a baseball game on mute and started idly reading through this thread, and started the album over again without much thought. The second time through just feels astounding. It’s weird, like I was trying so hard to focus on it the first time through and somehow missed so much, and then I just let it play and all of its greatness shook me. I’m kinda stunned by this album.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Sunday, 12 September 2021 22:17 (two years ago) link
I wasn't totally sold on the singles TBH, after the one-two punch of Ones & Sixes and Double Negative - the latter is devastatingly wonderful.But I'm listening to Hey What now and oh boy those first two tracks and the segue between them is phenomenal.
I listened back to a stack of Low in preparation for this, and I have to say it was interesting hearing the Porter Ricks remix of "Down" again. What a stunner.Nothing about the last 3 albums should be at all surprising to long-term Low fans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8IHnd_KF9oIn my typically backwards way I was into the owL Remix album before I was across much of Low's actual output...
― raven, Monday, 13 September 2021 11:28 (two years ago) link
Updated my dual cross-oeuvre Low comps for 'Hey What'. They're not "best ofs" per se--rather, mixes taking at max one track per album/EP, in chronological order, that I think would introduce a new listener effectively or illustrate the band's constant exploration. Focus is via the duality at their core, the light and the darkness.
.@lowtheband has been one of my very favorite bands for 25 years. They always create intense beauty from the struggle between light and darkness in our souls.'A Light in Darkness' is how I would introduce someone to Low. With 'HEY WHAT,' light and dark join into something new. pic.twitter.com/FvepXGVeqG— Musicophilia (@musicophiliamix) September 12, 2021
― Soundslike, Monday, 13 September 2021 12:09 (two years ago) link
https://archive.org/details/low2017-10-16.amsterdam.ca-14.flac16/low.2017-10-16.ca-14.mastered.t02.flac
have been looking through bootlegs today & found this great one from the 'organ reframed' festival in 2017 where they performed mostly early versions of double negative songs arranged for pipe organ & drum machine
the song titles are mostly different though:"horse breaker" is "rome (always in the dark)""it's all been done" is the double negative outtake which was a japanese bonus track"dancing" is "dancing and blood""blood" is "quorum""what's the world" is an unreleased song they've only played once since, for one of last year's instagram performances"interlude" is "the son, the sun"? i think?"soldier" is "fly""i've had it all" is another unreleased song
― ufo, Monday, 13 September 2021 13:10 (two years ago) link
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Sunday, 12 September 2021 21:44 (yesterday) link
Absolutely. The general indie-verse was overlooking it as I think there was an assumption that Low had at that point settled, as many veteran indie bands do, into a solid but not-so-daring version of themselves that nobody was really inclined to get particularly excited about. Another indie band playing indie music. Their recent albums were cheap in the used bins, and their cool stock was Low. Double Negative was such a fresh sound that it instantly flipped their brand perception to "innovative geniuses" and their whole discography gets reassessed in the process.
― Evan, Monday, 13 September 2021 13:33 (two years ago) link
I feel very lucky that I just happened to be getting into Low around the time Ones and Sixes came out. I started with the Transmission EP (bc it's my favorite Joy Division song), continued to contemporary LP Long Division, then went "These guys never broke up, right? I wonder what they're up to these days..." and proceeded to have my mind blown
― Nature's promise vs. Simple truth (bernard snowy), Monday, 13 September 2021 16:39 (two years ago) link
i am so happy low are on top of the world right now.
― maelin, Monday, 13 September 2021 16:42 (two years ago) link
I wasn't to into it as a single, but in the context of the album, "Days Like These" hits much harder. Been humming it all weekend, too.
― I'm a sovereign jazz citizen (the table is the table), Monday, 13 September 2021 17:18 (two years ago) link
ugh, *too into it, jeezus.
I listened to Invisible Way over the weekend, and I still like it. 'On My Own', vamping out on "happy birthday happy birthday happy birthday happy birthday", come on, who else would do that. I'm glad that exists in addition to the distortionverse of the last few albums.
― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 13 September 2021 17:27 (two years ago) link
here's my video of the first two songs "white horses" & "i can't wait" (they did the the new album in its entirety the a set of older songs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVnANibUhKc
sorry about the baseball hat head! i tried to hold it as high as i could without being the asshole who is holding up a phone so the people in back of me couldn't see
here are a few pictures of the site to give a better idea of what it looked like/the vibe
https://i.postimg.cc/c6hzZNJ1/PXL-20210911-234000026-MP.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/yDgpFgyW/PXL-20210912-004136518-MP.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/ZCDDBF31/PXL-20210912-012705775-NIGHT.jpg
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 13 September 2021 17:29 (two years ago) link
Thanks for posting this! I won't get a chance to see them again until April.
― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 13 September 2021 17:44 (two years ago) link
xpost that owL remix of Down is excellent and does connect to the evolution of their sound
― that's not my post, Monday, 13 September 2021 18:50 (two years ago) link
https://archive.org/details/low2017-10-16.amsterdam.ca-14.flac16/low.2017-10-16.ca-14.mastered.t02.flac🕸have been looking through bootlegs today & found this great one from the 'organ reframed' festival in 2017 where they performed mostly early versions of double negative songs arranged for pipe organ & drum machinethe song titles are mostly different though:"horse breaker" is "rome (always in the dark)""it's all been done" is the double negative outtake which was a japanese bonus track"dancing" is "dancing and blood""blood" is "quorum""what's the world" is an unreleased song they've only played once since, for one of last year's instagram performances"interlude" is "the son, the sun"? i think?"soldier" is "fly""i've had it all" is another unreleased song
― toby, Monday, 13 September 2021 19:57 (two years ago) link
Mad at myself for ignoring these guys for 25 years. Glad to have loved the singles and bought this album last Friday.
― Derek and Clive Get the Horn Street (Boring, Maryland), Monday, 13 September 2021 22:50 (two years ago) link
I wasn't too into it as a single, but in the context of the album, "Days Like These" hits much harder. Been humming it all weekend, too.
― I'm a sovereign jazz citizen (the table is the table), Monday, September 13, 2021 bookmarkflaglink
Same
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Monday, 13 September 2021 23:58 (two years ago) link
I was saying to Brad that the structure of the album reminds me a bit of The Comsat Angels' Sleep No More, wherein the first half kind of spirals inward in a manner that feels really of a piece, then the album comes up for the air a bit in the second half (before an epic closer). The clarity of the melody in "Days Like These", in isolation, felt like a comment on their recent career in general (sort of like C'mon refracted through the production values of Double Negative) whereas in the context of the album it feels more like a comment on the songs that precede it, like, "well, this is where we are now".
― Tim F, Tuesday, 14 September 2021 00:17 (two years ago) link
Will have to go back to Ones and Sixes. Have been listening to this repeatedly on headphones . Right now am focused on the last three - Don’t Walk Away, More, and The Price You Pay, all amazing
I liked what Abi Bliss said in The Wire: “In the same way that Double Negative was a Trump record that never once named the former president, the pandemic that few saw coming is lyrically absent from HEY WHAT yet omnipresent. It’s there in the shifts between fight or flight eruptions and quieter moments of hallucinatory disconnection, in the dramas played out upon a contracted stage of ‘I’s and ‘you’s, and in the renewed centering of Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s vocals”
― Dan S, Tuesday, 14 September 2021 05:39 (two years ago) link
damn, best album I've heard this year - went into it last night without reading this thread since it got revived
― nashwan, Tuesday, 14 September 2021 06:24 (two years ago) link
I had a proper listen last night on headphones and found it overwhelming in places - particularly the mid-section of Hey to Don't Walk Away. What an astonishing band.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Tuesday, 14 September 2021 14:59 (two years ago) link
sub pop appears to have ditched whatever effect they were planning for the cover? mine's just a regular ol' picture
― diamonddave85 (diamonddave85), Tuesday, 14 September 2021 19:56 (two years ago) link
double negative was a distant transmission from another planet and on this one it's actually happening there, if that makes any sense
― ufo, Thursday, July 8, 2021
this makes sense to me
― Dan S, Tuesday, 14 September 2021 23:46 (two years ago) link
I like this album more the more I listen to it
― Dan S, Wednesday, 15 September 2021 06:08 (two years ago) link
allmusic review for the new album is not that great. Same guy who reviewed the previous 2.
― Pfunkboy AKA (Oor Neechy), Wednesday, 15 September 2021 18:02 (two years ago) link
another thing that strikes me about this album (and double negative) is that they are amazing but also moreso because of the context of the band's entire career, understanding the distance between this and the austere, hymn-like early material, all the evolutions prior to this, the push/pull between simplicity and experimentation they've had all along
like these sounds are so radically digitally fucked up in an amazing way but part of the power is also the core of Low that connects them to everything they've ever did, and the purity Alan and Mimi's harmony singing which can't be completely hidden in an avalanche of plugins pushed to their limit. i guess i feel like it all means more than it would from a new band that made this exact same record.
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 15 September 2021 19:48 (two years ago) link
"the price you pay" is quite the stunner. it's almost like industrial noize
― diamonddave85 (diamonddave85), Wednesday, 15 September 2021 20:02 (two years ago) link
and yet still sounds like Low
― diamonddave85 (diamonddave85), Wednesday, 15 September 2021 20:03 (two years ago) link
all the photos from Square Lake made it look like the ideal Low-seeing setting. might have to go out there sometime and walk around and think "Low played here..."
― the adventures of pavlo and schrödis (geoffreyess), Thursday, 16 September 2021 03:49 (two years ago) link
also they showed Jaws after? I saw Low open for Jaws 10+ years ago, thought it was just a random pairing at the time.
― the adventures of pavlo and schrödis (geoffreyess), Thursday, 16 September 2021 03:53 (two years ago) link
They did, I didn't stick around for it
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 16 September 2021 04:43 (two years ago) link
it wasn't in the square lake park but in someone's garden nearby I think
― StanM, Thursday, 16 September 2021 07:19 (two years ago) link
absolute stunning album.the vocals marching on come what may, remaining fundamentally intact despite the push and pull of the surrounding s***feels fitting for these times!;)
― Pagoda, Thursday, 16 September 2021 09:27 (two years ago) link
Maybe this is old news, but speaking of Jaws, they've got a limited re-issue (not my word) of the classic Jaws shirt up on their shop now.
Still digesting my first spin of this. Incredible for sure, but hard to put into words.
― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 16 September 2021 22:37 (two years ago) link