Low, Double Negative, 2018 (ENG)

Low, Double Negative, 2018

By: Erreh Svaia

Rock N Roll Animal

Musical phenomena of this type like Double Negative are rare in life, moments in which a band throws for sale everything we know about it and decides to "unlearn" in order to learn something completely new, of course, Double Negative keeps sounding something like a Low album, as much as Radiohead's Kid A resembled OK Computer, nothing and everything, much as the Velvet Underground's debut album resembled the third album by the legendary band led by Lou Reed.

Starting with a name like Low, the first thing that comes to mind is that huge experimental album by David Bowie with Brian Eno recorded in Berlin in the 70s, and the reference is not that far away and in fact makes quite good sense to me, that in Double Negative, this trio of "slowcore" native of Minnesota really proceed with a complete regeneration of their being, of course the base of Alan Sparhawk on guitars, Mimi Parker on drums (both on vocals) and Steve Garrington on the bass is maintained, but the band has chosen to use their instruments in a very different way than we were used to, the Kid A is not such a distant reference, Bowie's Low is not, even Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music either It would be so crazy to mention it.

In Quorum, the first theme, the brilliant transformation of the band is immediately palpable, the sound evolution from mere music to pure sound (or white noise, even) that has always been interesting to me is present, an Alan Sparhawk sounding like the Phil Collins that we always wanted to hear as the heir of Brian Eno or Peter Gabriel (with titanic and minimalist drum work included), the band strongly embracing a remarkable inclination towards the free form, towards the abstract that makes this piece something intriguing and exciting at once, giving way immediately to the monumental Mimi Parker and her ethereal voice, in Dancing and Blood.

When arriving at Fly, one could notice at times those flirts with the concept of "disintegration" applied to the music that the great William Basinski introduced us for some years, or even a certain fascination with the chaos in the style of some My Bloody Valentine also becomes perceptible here, while the band is submerged in a sonic anarchy that refuses to fall into a known form or label, perfectly backed by the surreal production of BJ Burton, who manages to give some interesting twists to the themes , giving an occasional "respite" to the listener, who has no choice but to bow to the strange beauty of each of the themes, with a Tempest bordering on the most beautiful that surely we will hear this year.

It would be difficult to argue that a song like Always Up is not essentially congruent with the recognized sound of the band, with those radiant vocals, pulsating rhythms of an overwhelming shyness, of a nature that refuses to respect a contour and that overflows any kind or understandable to mix a kind of reality with other dream content, which seems impossible for any other band to approach in this way so generous and methodically conceived, entering fully into Always Trying to Work It Out, another jewel of sublime iconoclastic beauty, from which it is impossible to escape, which invites us to avoid seeking a final explanation and almost obliges us to stay and enjoy the unknown and the inexplicable, even at the risk of being devoured by a sonic beast waiting at the end of the light to take its sharp claws of white noise that bring to my mind the fabulous sonorous constructions of Ben Frost, to whom Low seem to pay a kind of tribute with this theme.

Although at times we could feel an almost dehumanized presence of music, Low's genius is precisely filling these wide sound spaces of a spirituality beyond the religious, almost like Swans by Michael Gira, but of a different dimension, an alternate one in which the gravity does not exist and the band seems to float and surf in the same sound waves that they produce as in Poor Sucker, to then break with that sensation of floating and hitting the floor as in Rome (Always in TH Dark) , a song that I bet Peter Gabriel would die for singing, although I doubt he has the courage to do it (maybe Robert Plant, fan of the band will do it again).

Disarray is responsible for closing this beautiful and enigmatic album, without a doubt a great event in the musical production of this year, an album that arrives as possibly the most pleasant surprise so far this year that is responsible for putting the Low again in the authentic musical avant-garde, which will undoubtedly set the tone for many to try to imitate, I doubt they can do it this way, with such a bursting dose of talent, for now, we float with Low, without fear of landing.