Low @ The Art School, Glasgow, 8 Oct

The Minnesota trio return to Glasgow with latest album Ones and Sixes in tow

Live Review by Will Fitzpatrick | 13 Oct 2015

It’s easy to feel like the best pop music should be there to teach us something. It’s full of bon mots and philosophical clusterbombs, dropped on us when we feel most vulnerable and sometimes guiding us through troubled times. But often its lessons feel insufficient or even just plain trite – who’da thunk three minutes of melody would be inadequate for truly resolving the great mysteries of life, huh?

Perhaps sensing that there are more mysterious forces at play than pop can handle, Duluth trio Low operate somewhat differently. Latest album Ones and Sixes is as strong a record as they’ve ever made, adroitly illustrating a band that continues to challenge itself, and unsurprisingly, tonight’s set is largely drawn from its many highlights. They’re even more emotionally stark and darkly beautiful in the flesh than on record: multi-instrumentalist Steve Garrington cuts open the fragile melodies of Kid In The Corner with coarse fuzz bass, while Mimi Parker’s keening, pleading vocal lends a gospel flavour to Lies’ hollowed-out rawness.

The band barely impart a murmur in between songs, simply closing their eyes and getting lost in the music’s tense grip. Reverentially reflecting the solemn quiet, the audience are at times so silent that every whisper; every awed sigh; every plastic beer cup sent skittering along the floor is perfectly audible. Storms break through the calm all too frequently, of course – in 2015, the once perma-hushed Low are often blisteringly loud, whether building to steep emotional crescendos or simply peeling paint from the walls with vicious guitar tones. That such tempestuous volatility should mix so effortlessly with the spiritual softness of their early days (oft-forgotten old friends Two Step and Laser Beam form a spectrally beautiful encore) makes for an evening of thrilling contrast.

At the front of it all is Alan Sparhawk, the band’s frontman and emotional centre. Among other things, Ones and Sixes strives to understand the relationship between what is definable and what isn’t; an existential quest through the reality that the singer began to question following his public struggle with depression. When spitting the chorus to What Part Of Me (“…don’t you know? / What part of me don’t you own?”), he sounds desperate, but by the end he’s nodding along with the beginnings of a satisfied smile on his face. DJ gives the biggest clue: “You want religion / You want assurance / A resurrection / Some kind of purpose?” The point of the rhetorical question is clear: the utterly remarkable Low epitomise uncertainty, not resolution. Their music offers little in the form of wisdom or direct comfort. It has no shamanistic qualities. They are simply a reassurance that we are not alone in our fears and worries and headfucks and wonderings.

“I ain’t your DJ,” Sparhawk continues, emphasising that he’s not here to select the tunes that will make your day better. “You’ve got to shake that.” Sometimes there’s a curious satisfaction to be taken from realising that the answers are unknowable; that Low articulate this so beautifully is the reason they’re so important.

 

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