Low returns to Northland on a high

Chris Casey, Duluth News-Tribune. June 11, 1999

Low's music arrives slowly, like a summer dusk in northern Minnesota. If you let them, the band's melodic, mesmerizing songs will transport you into a tranquil, reflective state of mind.

That's when the seed of another Low fan has been planted.

"We're pretty into letting our lyrics and the mood of the music kind of slip into areas where people would perhaps call spiritual," said Alan Sparhawk, Low's singer and guitarist.

That spiritual aura will find a natural home at Low's next gig. The Duluth band -- Sparhawk; his wife, singer/drummer Mimi Parker; and bassist Zak Sally -- perform at 8 p.m. today in Sacred Heart Music Center, 201 W. Fourth St.

Sparhawk said Low, which recently returned from two months of touring (including five weeks in Europe), is always looking for unusual places to perform.

The 104-year-old former cathedral in downtown Duluth suits the band just fine.

"You can get away with being fairly quiet and (the music) still kind of feels like it's filling the room, and you can still hear everything, you know, the reverb and all of that kind of stuff," Sparhawk said.

A friend of Sparhawk's, music promoter Scott "Starfire" Lunt, arranged the show -- Low's first Northland gig since last fall.

"I just told him we'd like to do a show in Duluth when we're back (from Europe) and he said, 'Well, I know this space and it's really cool,' " Sparhawk said.

Lunt, who also works as a local ambulance driver, served as inspiration for a song on Low's new album, the critically acclaimed "Secret Name."

"It was one of those things where you get halfway through the song and realize what it's about, and then you are able to finish it," Sparhawk said of the song, "Starfire."

The album, the band's fourth full-length CD, sees Low strengthening its niche in the "shrinking middle class of the music industry," Sparhawk said.

"I don't think we've ever had any grand illusions about being very famous," Sparhawk said. "We've been really lucky. The way things have been going we continue to grow a little. With each record, we sell a few more. It's at a level where we're just able to pay the house payment and phone bill. We'll take a few months off at a time from touring and do a few odd jobs and stuff here and there."

Parker, who Sparhawk said writes the band's most popular songs, works at Barnes & Noble Bookstore when the band's not touring. Sparhawk, the band's main songwriter, does some house painting. Sally heads west to hang with friends in Washington state.

Writing reflective music -- tunes "where you just need to be quiet and think about stuff" -- is the band's goal, rather than recording top-10 hits, Sparhawk said.

"The kind of music that we do is the stuff that, at two in the morning, you can't sleep and you're sitting in your bed in the dark and you're sitting there wondering who you are, and what am I doing with my life," he said. "These are the same basic questions. That's spirituality to me, and religion, ideally, deals with those things."

While often moving in stark, spare arrangements -- the music, which belies the band's downcast name, could hardly be described as depressing.

"We've always been slow, fairly minimal," said Sparhawk, who lists the Beatles and Roy Orbison among his influences. "Secret Name" "is probably the most orchestrated record we've done as far as (using) other instruments, and then a lot of the time spent on melodies."

On the album's opener, "I Remember," Sparhawk's delicate vocal has evocations of a really mellow Neil Young. And there's nothing dirge-like about "Two-Step," a tender, romantic piece written by Sparhawk and Parker, or "Weight of Water," which showcases Parker's hypnotic vocals.

The band enjoyed the production savvy of engineer Steve Albini, who has produced albums for such big-name bands as Nirvana, The Pixies, The Breeders and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. "He doesn't tell you how to do a song; he's just really good at capturing the sound," Sparhawk said of Albini, who also produced Low's 1997 EP "Songs for a Dead Pilot."

While the Sparhawk-written "Will the Night" on the new album has a slightly doo-wop, pop sound, Sparhawk said Low will probably never be a radio-friendly band.

"We'd basically have to turn our back on a lot of the core things that make us feel good about what we do," he said.

Whether you call it, "cabin-fever music," as Sparhawk does half-jokingly, or middle-of-the-night music, Low is developing a solid fan base across the nation and in Europe. On a good night, the band will draw 600 and, as opposed to a few years ago when a minority in the crowd knew who the band was, Sparhawk said "about 80 to 90 percent" of the audiences now are familiar with Low.

The band, which tours extensively, will go on the road again in September. They're currently recording a Christmas CD, due out late this fall.

Shrewd Low fans will note there's some word play at work in "Missouri," one of the tracks on "Secret Name."

"That's probably the most subliminal Mormon reference actually," said Sparhawk, who, along with Parker, is Mormon. "Before Mormons were in Utah they were in Missouri. But they were more or less kind of kicked out."

While Low's music goes into spiritual terrain, it doesn't preach.

"That's kind of probably the most blatant reference" the band has made to Mormonism, Sparhawk said of "Missouri," which is pronounced "misery" in the song. "At the end of the day, like I said, I hope it's just a good song."