With A DREAMY Brand Of Pop Music, LOW Releases Its MOST INTIMATE Album Yet

Simon Peter Groebner, Billboard. June 2, 2001

Most people have never heard of Low, but millions of Americans are subconsciously aware of the band's music. Remember the Gap's snowy-holiday TV ad from last Christmas? That was Low's strange and impossibly dreamy rendition of "Little Drummer Boy."

Low singer/guitarist Alan Sparhawk says he found the commercial "perversely delightful. It kind of goes back to when we started the band—the idea of 'Wow, what would it be like to play this stuff in front of people? It's gonna really make them uncomfortable.'"

Hailing from Duluth, Minn., some three hours north of the Twin Cities, Low has made an eight-year career out of lulling and disorienting audiences with its extreme low-tempo, low-volume minimalism and stark but intimate lyricism. The Low fan, upon visiting Duluth for the first time, would be struck by how the band's music seems perfectly in step with the mood of this icy, quiet Lake Superior port. (Natives deny any connection between the Low sound and the local geography.)

But don't get the idea that the trio—made up of Sparhawk, his wife, drummer/vocalist Mimi Parker, and bassist Zak Sally—are dark and somber folks. "I think the more people know us, the less interesting we are. They assume we're mysterious people, quiet people, but they always end up finding out we're normal, boring people," Sparhawk says, with characteristic Midwestern modesty.

Low's first three spare albums on the semi-major Vernon Yard label were all instant hits with college radio. Since moving to the tiny Chicago indie Kranky in '98, Low's vision has grown sharper, while its cult-fun base has continued to grow. The fourth release, Secret Name and this year's epic Things We Lost in the Fire—both recorded by post-punk legend Steve Albini—boast more direct songs, lush arrangements and even a little chamber music and noise.

Things We Lost... might be Low's most intimate record, as Sparhawk's and Parker's harmonies on songs like "Closer" and "Medicine Magazines" have a closeness that may only be possible between married people. And at least two songs are for the newest member of the Low family. "In Metal" and "Embrace" are beguiling lullabies for the couple's 1-year-old daughter.

"There's more of a sense than before of letting the songs do what they want to do instead of fitting them in a little Low box," says Sparhawk. "You kind of have to. If we were making the same record we did at the beginning, that would probably be a crime."