Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Showing posts with label Mimi Parker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mimi Parker. Show all posts
Monday, November 7, 2022
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Wednesday, September 8, 2021
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Low - Songs for a Dead Pilot
Low released this experimental EP in 1997. Here, they started to push the boundaries of what Low sounded like. It opens with a really strangely recorded version of Will the Night, with all the vocals and instrumentation relegated to the background, almost sounding like it came from a different room, and a kind of drone which follows the melody is given centre stage.
The dead slow trudge through Condescend comes next, a wintry yet warm tune sung by Mimi Parker. Speaking of trudges, the thirteen minute plus Born by the Wires is even slower and grimmer than Condescend. A fragile, high pitched Alan Sparhawk vocal crawls across dissonant guitar rumbles, the track is kind of hard work. The sinister, creeping Be There is quite minimal but works well, while Landlord is slow and foreboding. Parker and Sparhawk's signature harmonies make an appearance on the sweetest, briefest, and final track, Hey Chicago.
Definitely for committed fans rather than casual dabblers.
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Thursday, October 18, 2018
Low – Vicar Street – Live Review – 17/10/18
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2018/10/18/low-vicar-street-live-review-17-10-18/
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Low – Double Negative – Album Review
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2018/09/04/low-double-negative-album-review/
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Monday, July 16, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Album Review: Low – Drums and Guns
With 2007’s Drums and
Guns album, Low got really out there.
Gone were the rock guitars of The Great Destroyer, replaced by an
emphasis on beats and eerie organ tones.
It’s a very jarring listen right from the first track Pretty People,
which has little instrumentation to speak of barring Alan Sparhawk singing “all
you pretty people, we’re all going to die”.
It's possibly one of the least inviting opening tracks ever.
There’s a kind of
malevolence at the heart of the album with song titles like Sandinista,
Hatchet, Murderer, Violent Past etc.
Belarus sees them in electronica territory, not too far away from
Radiohead’s Kid A. Breaker feels very
minimalist, with handclaps and a one-fingered organ melody fleshing out a
melody which on another Low album would probably be a warm guitar strum.
The album actually gets
stronger as it progresses, Sandinista’s marching drums provide the background
for Mimi Parker and Sparhawk’s wonderful harmonies. Like many tracks on the album it’s brief,
clocking in at under two and a half minutes, further into the album Your Poison
is a mere 1 minute 13 seconds. Even the
sweeter moments like Parker’s Dust On The Window are covered in crashing drums
and eerie noises, while church bells run throughout the odd-sounding Take Your
Time.
Possibly the three
strongest melodies are saved till the final three tracks. In Silence features a piano and a rare
appearance of guitar rounding out the sound and Murderer is fleshed out with glitchy
electronica to gloriously sinister effect, accentuating lyrics like “don’t act
so innocent, I’ve seen you pound your fist into the earth”. Final track Violent Past manages to turn the
chilly keyboards into something approaching (luke)warmth.
It’s never going to be
my favourite Low album, and it certainly isn’t a good introduction to them, but
it’s a fascinating and rewarding album nevertheless.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Album Review: Low – The Great Destroyer
This album has
been billed as Low’s ‘rock’ album, and certainly Sparhawk’s guitars on
California and Just Stand Back would bear this out, and all the while with
veiled threats in the lyrics (the latter’s “here comes the knife… I could turn
on you so fast”). California is an
almost classic style rocker, and the distortion is turned up to the max on
Everybody’s Song. Sparhawk channels his
inner Neil Young on When I Go Deaf and also the towering On The Edge Of, like
prime slices of 70s Crazy Horse.
It’s not all
in-your-face-rock. Silver
Rider is a more classic Low midtempo brooder, while Cue the Strings is
reminiscent of Will the Night (off Secret Name) with just a little added menace. The addition of children’s voices on Step
doesn’t entirely work and Broadway (So Many People) with its queries of “where
is the laughter?” is a little overlong.
But it’s the
final three tracks that really round off this album with a flourish. What can be said about Pissing other than
it’s almost as sinister as Monkey.
Starting quietly, with minimal instrumentation and lyrics, it explodes
with guitars halfway through as the insistent melody plays on. But this has nothing on Death of a Salesman,
a sparse acoustic strum with sneering menace from Alan Sparhawk as he sings “I
forgot all my songs, the words now are wrong and I burned my guitar in a rage”,
before the final track Walk Into the Sea which strays back towards traditional
Low territory, albeit with slightly more prominent guitars.
This album
upset some fans of Low’s more traditional, doomy sound but I find it refreshing
to see the band aim for new territory.
And most importantly the songs are extremely strong.Wednesday, April 11, 2012
EP Review: Low - Murderer
Low put out this EP in 2003 as a limited release. The title track sounds very basic and simple
at first, a three-chord guitar strum with Alan Sparhawk singing about how “you
may need a murderer… someone to do your dirty work” as Mimi Parker coos in the
background. The track builds and swells
wonderfully as Parker harmonises with Sparhawk as the guitars pick up the pace,
rising and falling in intensity as the track progresses.
Silver Rider, on the other hand, sounds unfinished. A drum pattern and keyboard pick out the
backing for this one, framing a ghostly melody.
The short EP finishes with the longest track here, From Your Place On
Sunset. This track is a classic,
slow-as-hell, plodding, growling Low track.
Parker and Sparhawk’s vocals on this one really bring it to life and it
works really well, with Sparhawk cranking out the guitars towards the end.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Album Review: Low - Trust
It's followed by the faster-paced Canada, a kind of an indie-strum, but the momentum created by this and it's predecessor is ruined by the plodding Candy Girl, the only real misstep on the album. The remainder of the album consists of accessible Sparhawk sung strums (Time Is The Diamond, the banjo-featuring In The Drugs), short and sweet Parker-sung wintry ballads (Tonight, piano ballad Point of Disgust), Spector-like wall of sound tracks (Last Snowstorm of the Year, La La Song) and a pair of really angry tracks (The Lamb, John Prine). These last two feature crashing guitars, pounding drums and almost vengeful vocals, with the latter also featuring the tolling of a foreboding bell.
Shots & Ladders rounds things off, blissing out into a sort of snow-gaze ending. For me, this album is Low in their prime, showing them to be one of the finest bands around.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Album Review: Low + Dirty Three – In The Fishtank 7
Low were in a
particularly fertile phase creatively in 2001, and combining with violin based
instrumentalists Dirty Three seemed like an inspired move.
I Hear…
Goodnight sounds like a fairly standard Low track, albeit backed with violin,
but their version of Neil Young’s Down By The River is the centerpiece. It builds up very slowly, over half of the 10
minute duration elapses before the Mimi Parker sung melody is heard. She takes an already dark song and makes it
darker still, the unconventional treatment making it seem almost sinister.
Dirty Three’s
violins combine well with Parker and Alan Sparhawk duet Invitation Day, while
When I Called Upon Your Seed is almost gospel, sounding almost completely like
a Low track.
The
instrumental Cody on the other hand sounds like a Dirty Three track before the
sitting-on-the-porch-rollicking-blues of Lordy brings things to a close. It’s a barnstorming track, quite unlike
anything in either band’s catalogues.
There is
plenty here for fans of either band to get stuck into.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Album Review: Low – Things We Lost In The Fire
2001’s Things We Lost In The Fire, Low’s fifth album (or sixth if you count the Christmas EP) feels like a kind of leap forward. Which is not necessarily a good thing!
It opens with Sunflower, which has a simple, descending melody overlaid with pounding drumbeats. What saves it is that the actual playing, singing and instrumentation is so good, it’s hard to ignore. The album takes a sharp left turn with the sinister, almost threatening Whitetail, with the deathly slow lines “stay… up… all… night… waste… time… waste… night…” And that IS as good as it sounds.
They change tack again with Alan Sparhawk’s heavy riffs on Dinosaur Act, which almost sounds like a ‘standard’ alternative rock song. Mimi Parker gets to do her ghostly shimmering thing on Laser Beam and Embrace, where her wobbling vocals are given gloriously sparse settings.
Although the album slows to a crawl with tracks like Whore and Kind of Girl, Like A Forest picks up the pace dramatically, before one of Low’s warmer tracks Closer, which, like July earlier on the album, features a gorgeous string section.
Many consider this one of Low’s more accessible albums. I’m not so sure. There are accessible tracks (Sunflower, Dinosaur Act) but also foreboding tracks like Whitetail and Embrace. But it’s a strong album, and it stacks up well with Low’s other releases.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
EP Review: Low – Bombscare
This EP is a collaboration between Low and electronic duo Springheel Jack and was released in 2000. Some unsettling, chilly keyboard sounds open the glacially paced title track, a duet between Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker. Hand So Small is a graceful tune sung by Parker over a simple, unadorned piano part. Not to be outdone, Sparhawk sings the foreboding So Easy So Far, while final track Way Behind ends on a somewhat repetitive note. Well worth checking out if you like Low.
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