Low: Classic or classic?

awwww

Love it! Great backup singin’! https://t.co/4qhUEgOvQO

— LOW (@lowtheband) July 3, 2021

Holy shit at this album, like Depeche Mode meets Neil Young meets Autechre. I love it, my family will hate it!

Haven't given in to temptation yet--but very encouraged to hear it sounds like Low is staying at the weirder end of their spectrum. I love weird Low.

When the RIAA knock down my door and ask why I did it, I'll point them to Josh in Chicago's last post

it's the good sort of sequel, where they're continuing what they were doing on Double Negative but not just repeating themselves

Double Negative was really submerged in a sea of noise but this time they're sailing on top of it more

the opening track is everything I ever wanted from them

unsurprisingly this is good as hell. "more" is like their "velocity girl" or some shit, wonderful little nugget that adds a lot to the album in two minutes. I have a hard time imagining anyone who liked DN being disappointed with this.

I've gotten so much enjoyment out of this band for close to 30 years and rarely had to pay for a thing (legally), but goddammit I just bought a t-shirt.

i saw them as part of a festival so it was a one-off (i think) so there wasn't any merch

I bought a ticket for a Low show in May '22 - these crazy times, still

I followed Josh in Chicago's good example and bought a shirt. This album goes from "pretty dang good!" to "this is unreal" right after Days Like These.

I was like, "well I can hold out a few more weeks...." not realizing it's still two more months! Damn, this is going to be a rough wait.

double negative was a distant transmission from another planet and on this one it's actually happening there, if that makes any sense

A friend said "they went from disintegrating to evaporating" and I think that's on the same level, ufo. Makes sense to me.

Low definitely put out some of the weirdest merch in the past - the fridge magnet lyrics tin is special but why I have a Low pillowcase is anyone's guess...

is the artwork a 3d/hologram type thing? their site seems to suggest so: https://www.chairkickers.com/

The new one and the last one, without trying to be hyperbolic, they sound like someone waking up one morning and just somehow knowing a new language, and then immediately trying to do something with that new language. Or, I dunno, discovering a new tuning, or finding a new color. Totally in line with everything else they've done but done totally different than everything else they've made. I also love the idea of music (like these last two albums) that are literally impossible to replicate live. Perform, sure, and they were amazing on the last tour. But the music as recorded, however clearly fussed over ... I don't know, I think it's fascinating that they had to write these songs, with lyrics and melodies, then record them, blow them up, bend them out of shape, destroy them and rebuild them in the studio, and then, live, they have to do it all over again, finding their way back to each song's roots and melodies, because the sonic stuff of the recent is exclusively a product of studio experiments.

Low definitely put out some of the weirdest merch in the past - the fridge magnet lyrics tin is special but why I have a Low pillowcase is anyone's guess...

― Well *I* know who he is (aldo), Thursday, July 8, 2021 bookmarkflaglink

I love my Double Negative dishtowel.

Also one of my favorite band t-shirts ever was from a real early Low show - I think it was around the time of Curtain Hits the Cast. It was basically the Jaws movie poster - a blue t-shirt with the shark rising out of the water, teeth bared, and in big bold orange letters, LOW.

bj burton is a fucking genius and is the sound of RIGHT NOW.

the cover art thing is called spectral decoding. bright eyes did it with cassadaga

cool, thanks!

I don't really know much about Burton and was surprised how pop-oriented much of his production work is. But I did find this crazy accurate interview quote from a couple of years back:

... bands you’re highly motivated to work with because of their back catalogue?

“Have you heard of the band Low? They’ve never written a bad song. They put out an acoustic album and I had this vision of pushing them to make the most beautiful, distorted, post-apocalyptic record – the sort of thing you’d find 2,000 years ago if you dug the earth up. We made that record and it’s one of the favourite albums I’ve ever made.”

It looks like he posted a bunch to this thread about the making of Double Negative:

https://gearspace.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-and-electronic-music-production/1261587-lows-double-negative-sound-awesome-production-info.html

This is a good summation:

I got a lot of **** from mastering engineers, so I ended up mastering it myself...those guys are so scared. but if it sounds good, and the soul is there, then it will translate. no rules

From that interview I learned that Alan uses a lot of Red Panda's Particle pedal, which, when you hear this ...yeah:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXUfj6y4NO0

I don't really know much about Burton and was surprised how pop-oriented much of his production work is.

apart from his work with Low, he's probably best known for being part of Bon Iver's inner circle, co-writing & playing a ton of stuff on their last two albums & occasionally being a touring member

his work on last year's Charli album was fantastic & full of the noise he's known for with Low. the Japanese House album was also excellent

i wanna hear him work with Lambchop next, he'd be really well aligned with their direction the last few albums

This is pretty great, taking some of the strands of Double Negative and running with them. it has a distinctly different mood but with mostly the same toolbox. "Hey" is the big standout to me so far, it's beautiful

Also yeah, between Charli, Japanese House, and Low, I've loved every Burton production that I've heard

I'd forgotten all about Charli XCX, I'll have to check that out. Looks like Burton has produced a ton of stuff I've never even heard of. The Empress Of, Kacy Hill, Banks, Francis and the Lights ... I can only imagine that some of these things sound cool, too, but the problem is that they're not Low, so odds are they are nowhere near as good as Low.

(burton also produced the upcoming kacey musgraves record)

!! Now that gets my attention.

oooh

I hope the closer on this one portends the sound of the next one the way "disarray" sort of ended up doing. I am ready for an all-doomy-bangers Low album with Burton on board.

(burton also produced the upcoming kacey musgraves record)

whoa

I'm having a hard time emotionally right now deliberating over whether to just listen to the leak already or not. Just tell me it's okay because I plan on buying the record when it's out, okay?

relistening to double negative to whet my appetite since i'm still undecided on the leak. "always up" might be one of the most beautiful songs of all time

any of y'all feeling guilty and weird about the leak spotify users by any chance? lmao

just listen to it and then buy it when it comes out!

i mean, i already bought the album. for me it's more about wanting to blast my ears out on the hifi with FLACs rather than the dodgy mp3 leak

I wouldn't worry about that, this album sometimes sounds like your stereo has been pre-busted.

paradoxically it's my experience that noize and productions that are made to 'sound like shit' are the ones to suffer most from mp3 encoding. out of curiosity, i took a look at the spectrograms from double negative to see what kind of imperceptible musical info it was throwing away. here's a comparison of flac vs 320 cbr mp3 for tempest.

i don't want to derail the thread into a lossless vs lossy argument, just an interesting observation i wanted to share.

OMFG at "Hey".

“Hey” >>> “Days Like These” 🔥🔥🔥🔥 Mind blown!!!

wow i had no idea burton was working on the kacey musgraves album, that's super exciting

i found an interview where burton said he did some stuff with dj quik in 2019, which he described as his dream collaboration, really hope that sees the light of day

i noticed something kinda weird. everytime i listen to the stuttering outro to white horses, it sounds like its at a different pitch..??? anyone else experiencing this? super fascinating illusion

The notes slowly increase in pitch if that's what you mean. But as a whole the outro sounds the same each time I listen

that outro sounds like a Lindstrom mix gearing up or something

i just felt like every time i've had the record on they've resolved differently, maybe something to do with the harmonic interval, or maybe just my busted old ears.

is that what variable bitrate means? :-D

SOMEWHERE OUT ON THE OCEAN...

20.07.21
7:00 PT | 9:00 CT | 15:00 BST pic.twitter.com/BAQSpG05oP

— Sub Pop Records (@subpop) July 19, 2021

ok ok - it's maybe not them but they retweeted it and they were going to release some more songs from the album during the Summer

so, the new bass player is Liz?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRZk5cqDxSF/

Right. Disappearing is coming out tomorrow and that tweet screenshot IS from the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9JyjipKBJk