Here's the Low-down on hot trio from Duluth

Jim Walsh, Pioneer Press. May 20, 1994

Usually, when a band has the kind of year Low just had, someone along the line describes it as a "whirlwind." But considering the ambiant whisper-in-the-ear sound the Duluth-based trio generates, a better weather metaphor might be "summer squall."

Together for just more than a year, Low (singer/guitarist Al Sparhawk, singer/percussionist Mimi Parker, bassist John Nichols) has enjoyed the kind of success in the past 12 months that only the wildest indie-rock dreams are made of: Their debut album, "I Could Live in Hope," was produced by Kramer, the infamous poobah of Shimmy-Disc Records, and was released on the New York-based major independent label Vernon Yard in March.

"It happened real quick; we were real lucky," says Sparhawk. "We've only been together for a year or so. We just got together and wrote a few songs, and did a show in Duluth, and it went well. So we thought, `Well, this is fun to play,' and it seemed to work out, so we just recorded the songs on a two- track recorder, made six or seven copies, and sent them out. Kramer sent us a postcard back right away and said, `I like your stuff, and I'd be interested in you recording a 7-inch on Shimmy.'"

The single turned into an album, and thanks to nonstop touring, Low has achieved a profile it takes most bands several years to realize. Their most recent tour has included dates opening for fellow moody popsters Luna, and today, from 3 to 5 p.m., they'll perform on "Off the Record" on Radio K (770 AM) as a warm-up set for tonight's show at the Whole Music Club.

To be sure, it's a long way from Low's modest beginnings in the Duluth-Superior area. In reviews of "Hope," many critics have taken Low's expansive, sinewy sound and forced analogies to Duluth's icy reputation. And while Sparhawk maintains that the band's personal musical tastes - and a compulsion to experiment outside ordinary rock margins - have more to do with how they stumbled upon their minimalistic style, he also says that some particles of Duluth may have winnowed their way into the Low-down sound.

"The lake has always been a thing to me," he admits. "There's that yin and yang in Duluth: You have this city, and then you have this lake Superior, this emptiness. For as far as you can see, nothing. And I guess it's always been an interesting thing to me. I grew up on a farm, and anything that involves lots of space or lots of emptiness in certain ways is something I'm into. I mean, not emptiness dismal-wise, but emptiness feel-wise."

In the late '80s, while going to college in Duluth, Sparhawk became inspired by Minneapolis bands Stickman and Mile One. He learned to play guitar and co-founded Zen Identity, which kicked around the Duluth and Minneapolis music scenes for five years. "It never took off," he says now. "It was typical long-hair-guy-take-his-shirt-off-and-rock-out kind of stuff. We had fun with what we were doing, but it was just kicking a dead horse."

He hooked up with Nichols, who had been playing bass and keyboards in a techno-industrial band, but the duo had no intention of making a serious go of it; all they knew was that they'd hit the wall. When Parker joined, the chemistry clicked. A few months later, they found themselves opening for one of the most adored new music groups of the moment.

"Luna's a good band for us to open for, as opposed to some bands out there who we'd probably look really funny next to. Something like Slayer would have been a little weird," says Sparhawk. "But it's pretty easy to see that anyone who would listen to Luna would be able to put up with us for 45 minutes."

While Low shares a similar uneasy quiet with such groups as Luna, Galaxie 500, Codeine and the Cowboy Junkies, they also blur the lines between the future and the past, as evidenced by the album's trippy take on the evergreen "You Are My Sunshine." But more than just stylistically, Low is not your run-of-the-mill rock 'n' roll band. Sparhawk and Parker, both 25, are married to each other, and their religious beliefs have infused the group with a code of behavior, lenient though it may be.

"We try not to cuss," says Sparhawk seriously, but with a chuckle. "And we're not real political about it, but we just don't happen to drink or take drugs or smoke. And it's not like we're a big straight-edged thing, but we try not to play on Sundays, partially because Mimi and I are Mormon. So it's a combination of the religious thing, and also that it always seemed like when we practiced, or early on when we'd do a Sunday gig, it always just didn't feel right. So whenever we have the power to, we just say we would rather not play on Sunday."

So far, so good. But if things keep going the way they have been, Low could be onstage every night of the week for the rest of their lives. Not bad for a band that was launched out of sheer boredom.

"Seriously, I just thought we'd do one gig and see how much we could annoy people," says Sparhawk. "And then we started writing a few songs and playing it around, and we got Mimi in the band, and it felt good. It was partially intended as a joke, and suddenly, it started working. And I'm still really enjoying it; I don't see it petering out or anything like that."