13 September 2021

Band: LOW (Duluth, Minnesota)
Who: Longtime noise-exploring duo with key members
Alan Sparhawk (guitar and vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums,
vocals) who entered the scene back in 1993 / 13 studio
albums so far (including the upcoming new one)

New album: HEY WHAT – out 10th September via Sub Pop

Pitchfork says: On the follow-up to 2018’s astonishing Double Negative,
Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk push deeper into abstraction, finding fresh
angles on the themes that have animated them since the beginning… HEY WHAT
is more like a surge of information through a corroded terminal, or an electrical
storm in the cavern between two earbuds.” Full review here. Score: 8.5/10.

Turn Up The Volume: Ever heard Lou Reed‘s 1975 Metal Music Machine? No?
Well don’t listen to it, because it’ll ruin your poor ears for about a week. It was
the late great genius’ sonic middle finger to the music business, or was he just
bored and let his engineer have some fun, or was he looking for a noise overdose?
I have no idea, nor had he, I guess. Anyway, the distortion pieces of HEY WHAT
wouldn’t be out of place on MMM. But LOW are certainly not bored.

They challenge noise, they create noise that’s both disturbing and thrilling.
They construct, they do not destruct.

Their twilight chaos is accessible as they alternate surreal sounding synth noise
with real sounding nightmare pop sequences (mostly the vocal parts). The whole resonates as a conflicting Beauty and the Beast record.

Also Low‘s twilight chaos makes sense. Not that I know what actually happens in their
obscure minds and I don’t need to as long as they inspire the dark side of MY mind. An experience I prefer over the daily confrontation with our surreal pandemic reality.

Without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most intriguing longplayers of 2021.

Singles/clips: Days Like These / More / Disappearing

– DAYS LIKE THESE –

– MORE –

– DISAPPEARING –

Stream/buy HEY WHAT here…

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LOW: Facebook

HEY WHAT out now – order info here