Product Description
In 2018, Low will turn twenty-five. Since 1993, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker – the
married couple whose heaven-and-earth harmonies have always held the band’s
centre – have pioneered a subgenre, shrugged off its strictures, recorded a Christmas
classic, become a magnetic onstage force and emerged as one of music’s most
steadfast and vital vehicles for pulling light from our darkest emotional recesses. But
Low will not commemorate their first quarter-century with mawkish nostalgia or safe
runs through songbook favourites. Instead, in faithfully defiant fashion, Low will
release their most brazen, abrasive (and, paradoxically, most empowering) album
ever: ‘Double Negative’, an unflinching eleven-song quest through snarling static and
shattering beats that somehow culminates in the brightest pop song of Low’s career.
To make ‘Double Negative’, Low reenlisted B.J. Burton, the quietly energetic and
adventurous producer who has made records with James Blake, Sylvan Esso and The
Tallest Man On Earth in recent years while working as one of the go-to figures at
Bon Iver’s home studio, April Base. Burton recorded Low’s last album, 2015’s ‘Ones
And Sixes’, at April Base, adding might to many of its beats and squelch and frisson
beneath many of its melodies.
This time though, Sparhawk, Parker and bassist Steve Garrington knew they wanted
to go further with Burton and his palette of sounds, to see what someone who is, as
Sparhawk puts it, “a hip-hop guy” could truly do to their music. Rather than
obsessively write and rehearse at home in Duluth, Minnesota, they would often head
southeast to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, arriving with sketches and ideas that they would
work on for days with Burton. Band and producer became collaborative cowriters,
building the pieces up and breaking them down and building them again until their
purpose and force felt clear. As the world outside seemed to slide deeper into
instability, Low repeated this process for the better part of two years, pondering the
results during tours and breaks at home. They considered not only how the
fragments fit together but also how, in the United States of 2018, they functioned as
statements and salves.
‘Double Negative’ is, indeed, a record perfectly and painfully suited for our time.
Loud and contentious and commanding, Low fights for the world by fighting against
it. It begins in pure bedlam, with a beat built from a loop of ruptured noise waging
war against the paired voices of Sparhawk and Parker the moment they begin to
sing during the massive ‘Quorum’. For forty minutes they indulge the battle, trying to
be heard amid the noisy grain, sometimes winning and sometimes being tossed
toward oblivion.
LP in embossed jacket with custom dust sleeve. Includes digital download coupon.
Available to independent retailers on Loser Edition crystal clear vinyl.
