How I Like Low: The Playlist

Not a greatest hits mix, but an introduction to indie rock's realest 'rents that prioritizes listenability, and hopefully sparking curiosity, over thoroughness. It's been gestating since before their new album HEY WHAT was even announced, so I decided to ignore that. But it's great.

Youtube links in bold, Spotify link on the bottom. Buy music if you can. It's nice.

1. “Words” (I Could Live In Hope, 1994)

1994, back when indie rockers still debated whether Galaxie 500 was any good. Here was a band with the same producer, the same soft strums, snare brushes, and  strained male vocals. You can even sing the climax of “Fourth Of July” over the chorus! Ironically, you might not even think of Galaxie 500 if you came to the band sometime in the 25 years that followed. Today, it’s the strong harmonies, darker words and more resolute pace that Low fans will recognize, all suggesting a perspective less boyish and green than that of their obvious antecedents. They were kinda goth, in sound, if not in fashion. Spooky squares in winter wear.

2. “No Comprende” (Ones And Sixes, 2015)

Still holding the beat back twenty years later, but lurching with a heavier, more ominous weight. There’s almost no ambiguity in the lyrics now. An exasperated man bemoans assumptions and rash decisions. A woman softly murmurs warnings of a house on fire. The only time this anxious/avoidant pair shares the same sentiment is a pitiful shred of sympathy for the other: “your hands were tied.”

3. “Shame” (Long Division, 1995)

Up late to watch 120 Minutes (it must have been summer or a three-day weekend), my reaction to this video, with its sleepy singer and sad clown - a sad clown holding red balloons! - was a Butthead-ian “uhhh” of giggly disbelief. Not one for overt artifice or gentility in my indie rock, Low mostly stayed none of my business for the next decade, until I was pleasantly surprised on Yahoo! Videos by a quiet-loud song about killing a monkey. Investigating their earlier albums, I was now more open to their delicate charms. I actually put this on the mix before discovering it was the song with the sad clown video!

4. “Holy Ghost” (The Invisible Way, 2013)

If you knew one thing about Low back in the day, it was that 2/3rds of these saddoes - guitarist Alan Sparhawk and drummer Mimi Parker (they just gave up on trying to keep a bassist this year) - were married Mormons from Minnesota who knew each other since childhood. Reviewers hungry for novelty and profundity regularly looked for hints of religious…something…in the lyrics, and there were usually references to lions, lambs, and such to tide them over. This Parker spotlight number about the mystery of faith could even be a gospel number (“feeds my passion for transcendence/ turns my water into wine”). But the way Parker sighs “I can tell when something’s wrong…and something’s wrong,” suggests a lack of rapture. Sometimes the only reward for steadfast devotion is the knowledge you're capable of it.

5. “Coattails” (The Curtain Hits The Cast, 1996)

I’ve never been *above* slow indie balladry, to be clear. But precocious R.E.M. worship meant I had a high standard for epic, arpeggiated prettiness.

6. “Always Fade” (Drums And Guns, 2007)

Impressed by the aforementioned monkey song (it’s so badass Robert Plant covered it!), Drums And Guns was the first Low album I came to psyched. And I wasn’t disappointed: biting, fatalistic lyrics had shot to the forefront, strums and snare brushes replaced with static and clatter. Somehow this band had become more sonically daring and more songful as they aged.

7. “In The Drugs” (Trust, 2002)

However snarkily (I once squealed in harmony over Secret Name's "Starfire" on air), I occasionally played stuff of theirs on my radio show in college. Trust in particular had some gorgeous songs that grabbed my attention, like this one. But, y’know, obtusely forlorn indie…there’s a lot of it out there!

8. “Just Make It Stop” (The Invisible Way, 2013)

Sometimes obtuseness has a point, though, like on this anthemic tribute to the agony of “it.” Getting through it, dealing with it, ignoring it, coming to terms with it, wishing it would leave them alone. How does a singer get away with not specifying what’s bringing them down? By capturing the feeling of being so close to achieving your purpose. So close to being on the right path. Then the listener can fill in the blank.

9. “When I Go Deaf” (The Great Destroyer, 2005)

Though a genuine fan of Low since the monkey song - also found on The Great Destroyer - I didn’t fall in love with them until this song hit me in the gut a couple years ago. I was dealing with chronic ear pain and hearing distortion with no clear cause or outcome. Always anxious and afraid of being a burden to those I love, and now entering the worlds of psychiatric medicine and fatherhood as a certain satanic somebody became president, this song (as well as a sympathetic podcast interview with Sparhawk about his mid-'00s meltdown and experiences with psychiatry) was one of the few things to give me any comfort. OK, if I don’t have my hearing…maybe I’ll have some peace. Maybe I won’t argue so much. Maybe I’ll appreciate the sky more. One could take it as an ignorant, self-loathing fantasy of achieving zen through trauma. But it felt better than fear.

10. “Lies” (Ones And Sixes, 2015)

A spiritual sequel to “No Comprende,” at least in my mind. The argument’s over, and nobody won. He’s still exasperated, unable to understand why someone would cling to their illusions, especially when he’s trying to so hard to be sympathetic. So ready to help them face their demons. He pleads and pleads until she says it’s time to move on (“oh, baby we’ve gotta go/ the shadow’s taking its toll”). When he responds “I should be sleeping by your lonely side/ instead of working on this song all night,” it’s not clear that’s even an option.

11. “Disarray” (Double Negative, 2018)

With weary vocals buried in more noise than ever, when not missing entirely, Double Negative got the band a new level of love for providing an aural equivalent to the Trump dumps. On the climactic finale, verses prescribe action and the chorus confesses depression with equal assertiveness, the ghostly harmonies pummelled by tv static.

12. “Death Of A Salesman” (The Great Destroyer, 2005)

A spare, acidic fantasy of artist interruptus, with a twist ending.

13. “In Metal” (Things We Lost In The Fire, 2001)

A rare goth parenthood anthem.