Laid-back Duluth trio explores life in the Low lane

Matt Peiken, Pioneer Press. February 5, 2001

Imagine enjoying a concert so much you don't cheer, sing along or mosh. You just stand there mesmerized, maybe a bit awestruck, eyes closed or glued to the stage, and listen.

That happens all the time at Low shows, where the Duluth trio lulls fans into an engrossing trance.

It happens one painstaking note at a time - the strum of a guitar, the gentle decay of a cymbal, harmonies held until the sound means more than the words - at speeds a budding flower can relate to. People lump Low under the slo-core banner, but singer-guitarist Alan Sparhawk never intended to blaze another splinter trail for alternative rock.

Instead, what started as an obsession - to test the limits of tempo and dynamics - has become a means of artistic liberation.

"Our full-on goal was to see how quiet and slow we could play, literally, and this was before we decided we even wanted to be a band," Sparhawk says. "Then we wondered what it would be like to play this in front of an unsuspecting audience. We've been yelled at and had stuff thrown at us and been called all sorts of names. But from the beginning, we knew we were doing something counter to what people were used to hearing, and we've thrived on that."

"Things We Lost in the Fire" (Kranky Records), Low's fifth record, broadens the bounds of the band's small-bang theory. The songs are more musically and emotionally lush, without diluting the importance of every sparse note that comes from the musical core of guitar, bass, snare drum and cymbal. The disc hits stores Feb. 13.

"We've become less obsessive about getting the most with as little as possible, especially on this record," Sparhawk says. "We were like 'Let's bring in some strings, some keyboards, let's get crazy.' It's still minimal compared to most bands, but for us, this was indulgence."

Sparhawk grew up in the early '80s listening to Joy Division, Velvet Underground and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - pioneers of dark, slower, plaintive rock - and wanted to experiment in those channels with his own music. He and a friend, who played bass, holed up together for extended, excruciating explorations of pace and quiet.

Mimi Parker, who had known Sparhawk since their days growing up in tiny Clearbrook, Minn., joined the duo, armed with only a snare drum, cymbal, a mounted tom and her experience in a school marching band. Sparhawk and Parker are married and parents of daughter Hollis, born in March 2000.

Low's first public performance, Sparhawk says, was a preview of things to come.

"Most people were like 'I can't deal with this,' and they went into the other room," he recalls. The music was "so stinkin' slow, and we just knew it was very uncomfortable, even to play. But a few people just sat down and listened to us, and it was a very powerful experience. It was very tense, this bubbling-under feeling that something's gonna explode but never does."

Low found few fans at home, often sharing bills with typical punk and garage bands that Low, in many respects, was rebelling against. But those who attached themselves to the group did so with ferocity, and word-of-mouth built a buzz for Low on the collegiate circuit. Its national breakthrough came as an opening act for Luna, and Low soon found itself as the cult of anti-pop.

"People take 99 percent of the music out there like wallpaper - they're neither offended or overtaken by it," Sparhawk says. "I'd much rather play music a few people are going to like and most aren't going to stand."

Steve Albini, who produced Nirvana's "Nevermind," helmed the new Low disc. Where Albini helped Nirvana achieve a sum greater than its parts, with Low, everything focused on the parts and, just as important, the vacant spaces between them.

You can hear Parker inhale before each breathless phrase in the song "Laser Beam." In "Whitetail," a methodical guitar strum drones against a swirling, swishing cymbal before Sparhawk and Parker creep in with their whispered harmony. The resonant ride cymbal sounds like water drops on "Medicine Magazines." With each song, you're waiting for something more to happen, but lose yourself in the delicate momentum.

Low received a jolt of attention in December when its version of "Little Drummer Boy," from the group's 1999 Christmas album, graced a Gap commercial. But Sparhawk expects Low to always have its feet planted in obscurity.

"It's still exhilarating and nerve-racking to play this music, knowing that the crash and explosion aren't all they're cracked up to be," Sparhawk says.

"It's like comparing romance to sex. When sex is over, it's done. But romance, you can work on for a long time, walk away from it and still feel the lasting impression."