Low was an American indie rock band from Duluth, Minnesota, formed in 1993 by the husband and wife duo of Alan Sparhawk (guitar and vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums and vocals).
The band was a trio from their formation to 2020, having featured four different bassists. Their early music was pioneering in the slowcore genre, usually featuring quiet harmony vocals, a melancholy mood, and very slow tempos compared to other styles of rock and roll. However, Low's sound gradually developed over time to touch on other influences.
Low disbanded in 2022 following Parker's death.
History
The band formed in early 1993. Sparhawk had been playing in the Superior, Wisconsin, band Zen Identity, the core of which was formed by drummer Robb Berry and vocalist Bill Walton. That band needed a new bassist, and recruited future Low bassist John Nichols. At that time, Nichols was a senior at Superior Senior High School, and bassist in the band Lorenzo's Tractor. Sparhawk taught Zen Identity songs to Nichols and during practices, the two started improvising with some very modest, quiet themes. As a joke, they wondered what would happen if they played such quiet music in front of Duluth, Minnesota, crowds, during a time when the most popular style of rock music was the loud, grunge, "post-punk" sound. Soon, the joke became a serious thought. Sparhawk left Zen Identity, who continued to perform and record without him, and he and Nichols recruited Sparhawk's wife Mimi Parker to play a very modest drum kit composed of a single snare drum, single cymbal, and a single floor tom. She was to use brushes almost exclusively, rather than drum sticks. Sparhawk said they played their first two shows in 1993 at the RecyclaBell in Duluth.
They began to send out demo tapes. One went to Kramer who had produced Galaxie 500, an influence of theirs. Kramer agreed to record them, and recommended them to an offshoot of Virgin Records; Vernon Yard.
Low's debut album, I Could Live in Hope, was released on Virgin Records' Vernon Yard imprint in 1994. It featured Nichols on bass, though he was replaced by Zak Sally, who joined for the recording of the band's next album Long Division. Both I Could Live in Hope and Long Division were produced and recorded by Kramer. Long Division and its similar follow-up, 1996's The Curtain Hits the Cast, established the band as critical darlings; extensive touring helped them to develop a highly devoted fan base. "Over the Ocean", a single drawn from The Curtain Hits the Cast, also became something of a hit on college radio.
By the time of their next full-length album, 1999's Secret Name, Low had moved to the independent label Kranky. In between, they released several singles and EPs. In 1999, Low joined forces with Dirty Three to record an In The Fishtank session for Konkurrent records. Allmusic called the six-song disc "some of the best material either unit has produced." Of particular note is the disc's lengthy cover of Neil Young's "Down by the River". 2001 saw the release of Things We Lost in the Fire.
The following year saw the release of the band's final full-length on Kranky, Trust. All three of the band's full-length releases on Kranky featured superstar producers: Secret Name and Things We Lost in the Fire feature the work of recording engineer Steve Albini, who proved sympathetic to capturing the band's strengths; while Trust was recorded by Tom Herbers along with Duluth engineer Eric Swanson and mixed by Tchad Blake at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios.
In April 2003, Peter S. Scholtes of the Twin Cities weekly paper City Pages posted in his weblog that Zak Sally had left Low. The following month, the band posted an update to the news on their website: "We have all had to work through some personal things recently ... After sorting it out, the good news is that Zak is remaining in the band ..." In July 2003, they toured Europe with Radiohead, Sally in tow. Following a successful tour in early 2004, the band signed with indie label Sub Pop. To tie up the loose ends of the era, Low released a three-disc rarities compilation on its own Chairkickers label in 2004.
Beginning with Secret Name, the band have diversified their sound. The band use subtle electronic music touches to augment their sound, reflective of their tenure with Kranky and their exposure to the Midwest's post-rock scene. Adding a more overt rock element to their aesthetic, the band has used fuzz bass from Things We Lost In the Fire onward, and began using distorted lead guitar on Trust. The band's 2005 album, The Great Destroyer, nods even further in the direction of rock. Recorded with producer Dave Fridmann and released by Sub Pop in January 2005, The Great Destroyer has received mostly positive reviews; the Village Voice described the record's "comparatively thunderous verve".
Low cancelled the second leg of their extensive tour in support of The Great Destroyer in late spring of 2005. Sparhawk published a statement on the band's website, addressed directly to fans, detailing his personal problems with depression that resulted in the cancellation of the tour. In August 2005, Sparhawk announced his return to performance, embarking on a US tour with vocalist Mark Kozelek. In October 2005, Sally announced he was leaving the band. Low replaced Sally with Matt Livingston, a bassist and saxophonist from Duluth's musical scene. In addition to playing bass guitar, Livingston also played an antique Navy chaplain's pump organ in the group.
After appearing on 2007's Drums and Guns and touring with the group, Matt Livingston left Low in 2008, to be replaced by Steve Garrington. Garrington would perform with the band for the next 12 years and four studio albums: 2011's Cmon, 2013's The Invisible Way, 2015's Ones and Sixes and 2018's Double Negative.
Sparhawk and Parker provided guest vocals on "Lunacy", the opening track on Swans' 2012 album The Seer.
In June 2021, the band announced an upcoming release on Sub Pop entitled Hey What. The album was released on September 10. With the announcement of the album came news of Garrington's departure from the band a year prior, turning Low into an official duo for the first time in their career. It was soon announced that the band had hired Charlie Parr bassist Liz Draper to support Hey What on tour.
Parker was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in late 2020; she began treatment in 2021 and publicly revealed the diagnosis during a podcast interview in January 2022. In August 2022, the band cancelled some European shows to accommodate Parker's treatment. In September, the band cancelled its dates opening for Death Cab for Cutie in the United States. In October, the band cancelled the remainder of their 2022 European tour dates, due to continued concerns about Parker's health. Parker died on November 5, 2022.
Following Parker's death, Sparhawk focused his musical attention to a new project named Damien, featuring their son, Cyrus, on bass guitar, songwriter Marc Gartman on vocals and drummer Owen Mahon. Formed in late 2021, prior to Parker's death, the band's debut album The Boy Who Drew Cats was released in May 2023. Upon the album's release, Sparhawk noted: "I'm learning not to be surprised by anything. There is a weird process going on and I have to allow myself the possibility that I have no idea what I'm going to be by the end of this." In June 2023, Sparhawk confirmed via Twitter that Low had ended with Parker's passing. "Low is and was Mimi," he wrote. "It was amazing. I'm grateful."
Performances
Low were known for their live performances. Rock club audiences sometimes watched the band while seated on the floor. During their early career, the band often faced unsympathetic and inattentive audiences in bars and clubs, to which they responded by bucking rock protocol and turning their volume down. The dynamic range of their early music made it susceptible to background noise and chatter, since many of their songs were very quiet. A performance in 1996 at the South by Southwest festival was overpowered when a Scandinavian hardcore band was booked downstairs. The Trust album marked a turning point, and Low's music developed a more emphatic sound.
Their shows often featured drastically reinterpreted cover versions of famous songs by Joy Division and The Smiths, in addition to their own original material. In performance, Low showed off a sense of humor not necessarily found on their recordings; a tour in early 2004 featured a cover of OutKast's hit song "Hey Ya!". At a gig in Los Angeles on Halloween 1998, the band took the stage as a Misfits tribute act, complete with corpse paint and black clothing.
At the 2008 End of the Road Festival in Dorset, England, Sparhawk abruptly ended the band's performance by ripping the strings and lead out of his guitar, throwing it to the ground and then hurling it into the crowd before exiting the stage. He had earlier informed the audience that it had been a "crappy day". In 2010 they performed The Great Destroyer at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. On Friday July 13, 2012, Low gave a candlelit concert at Halifax Minster in England.
Low's performance at the 2013 Rock the Garden concert in Minneapolis consisted of a slowed and lengthened version of their drone rock song "Do You Know How to Waltz?" followed by Alan saying, "Drone, not drones," a reference to an anti-drone sticker made by Minneapolis's Luke Heiken; the performance resulted in mass audience confusion and divisive online discussion. The performance lasted half an hour and was broadcast live on radio station KCMP, which had been playing cuts of their recent album. Low had performed a more traditional show for KCMP at the Fitzgerald Theater earlier in the year.
Low played at the 2022 Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, which would end up becoming one of their final sets. They notably covered Napalm Death's "You Suffer", and the festival uploaded the band's entire performance to YouTube.
On September 4, 2022, at what proved to be the band's final performance, Low took the stage at the Water Is Life Festival in Duluth.
Musical style and influences The music of Low was characterized by slow tempos and minimalist arrangements, and has been described as "atmospheric songs marked by long, unsettling silences." Jason Ankeny of AllMusic described the band's sound as "delicate, austere, and hypnotic." He assessed: "The trio's formative music rarely rose above a whisper, divining its dramatic tension in the unsettling open spaces created by the absence of sound." Early descriptions sometimes referred to the band's style as a rock subgenre called "slowcore", and Low were often compared to the band Bedhead, who also occasionally performed in the style in the 1990s. However, Low ultimately disapproved of the term.
Parker and Sparhawk's vocal harmonies represented perhaps the group's most distinctive element; critic Denise Sullivan writes that their shared vocals are "as chilling as anything Gram [Parsons] and Emmylou [Harris] ever conspired on—though that's not to say it's country-tinged, just straight from the heart." Low's style became increasingly experimental and adherent to post-rock over time, gradually incorporating elements of electronica and glitch music on later releases while retaining their minimalist approach.
Influences on Parker and Sparhawk as Low included R.E.M., Siouxsie and the Banshees, Simon & Garfunkel, Big Star, OMD, Young Marble Giants and the Velvet Underground. Sparhawk also cited Nick Cave as his all-time favorite artist, and abstract painter Mark Rothko as his "oddest musical inspiration".
Legacy The band's mainstream exposure was limited in the early part of their career. The band's version of "The Little Drummer Boy", played as a hymn, was featured in a Gap television ad that depicted a snowball fight in slow-motion to match the song's glacial tempo.