“I can still hear them laughing …”

By Matthew Sharp

I heard a review of Low’s latest album on the radio last week. At first I thought it was a new band with a similar name, but the reviewer’s reference to their Duluth roots triggered a flood of flashbacks. Was this the Low of 1994?

Before a phony sheen of sophistication overtook my sense of taste, I listened to lots of new bands, none in flannel plaid, but lots of new bands. That summer, I was slowly crawling into a post-Pink Floyd era, splitting my time between Willie Dixon, Dark Side of the Moon and the Wallflowers’ early riffs. Riveted by slow grooves that fueled - or played off - imaginative inhalations, I was continually drawn to purveyors of deep mellowness from new aspirants like Mazzy Star to the reliable Lou Reed.

One night in during the summer of 1994, while sitting on the roof of Rappel’s home, he played for me a new record he had just found. There was nothing slower, nor more subtle. Their voices sounded almost angelic, yet still so garage. Perfect for a quiet summer night outdoors. The first song on the record, Words, opens with a lethargic, naked bass line and builds up to the haunting chorus, “I can still hear them laughing…”

I quickly went to find this band’s record and was pleased to discover their sparse debut album slotted right behind Lou Reed at the record store. I bought Low’s I Could Live In Hope and quickly handed it to my mom, who was waiting in the car (as I was quite precocious then, I needed her to approve all my purchases…just kidding). She glanced over the album cover, which features an emaciated child scribbling at a desk in a barren room.

She reacted quickly with a spark, “Oh, that’s so sweet of you!” she exclaimed.
“What?”
“It is so touching of you to support them,” she paused, perplexing me further. “This is the album to benefit the children refugees from the war in Bosnia!”
“No, mom. No, it can’t be. It’s this slow-rock trio… I think they’re from Minnesota. I heard it at Rappel’s house,” I retorted, almost angrily.
“Oh, you don’t have to be embarrassed. I think it is so thoughtful of you to support the refugee efforts. I saw this advertised on t.v –“

Later that day I listened to the album on my goofy, over-sized headphones and looked through the slim liner notes, which only contained a picture of the band’s shoes and an exhortation to listeners, “We encourage correspondence!” So I did the unthinkable: I wrote them a hand-written note to share my mom’s amusing, confounding observations about their album cover and ask when they were playing in the area.

To my great shock, I received a response - written in all capital letters - within two weeks. They said they laughed a lot at the interpretation of the photo and that they would like to meet me at a show nearby happening later that month. Rappel wasn’t free on the night of their gig, so I took another friend, Knorps, who had never heard Low’s album but was curious. They were playing at the Empty Bottle, which was then situated on a desolate block on the edge of Chicago’s Cabrini Green public housing complex (since then, most of Cabrini Green has been torn down).

With my name on the guest list, Knorps was impressed – until the music started. He had never heard anything so slow and couldn’t understand why everyone sat down on the dirty floor of the bar to look up with frozen fixation. I told him they were on acid and were covering early Motley Crue numbers, albeit a bit off tempo. The choral vocal harmonies, clean guitars and jazz-brush drums of Al, Mimi and John waltzed us through their orchestral set of northern Minnesota classics, such as, You Are My Sunshine. Their music was beautifully sad, not profoundly epigrammatic, nor with the maudlin, self-serving suicide-pity that bored me about too many bands in those Cobain days.

After they finished, we chatted with the band briefly and left the bar, our pulses drained by their agonizingly sluggish pace of their set. The symphony leaves me exhilarated and massage parlor wave music puts me to sleep, but Low’s slow groove had a unique impact that night: they smoothed out the edges and put a Midwestern face to the bombing of Bosnia. Somehow that show stands out amidst so many great music nights I’ve enjoyed since: meeting the Counting Crows in Boston just as their trajectory began, seeing the Samples do their tenth anniversary show at the Wetlands all acoustic because the power went out, or savoring the sweat in front row seats at a stunning Cinderella concert two years ago – and leaving with one of Tom Keifer’s precious guitar picks….all those shows are memorable, but I attended none clutching a hand-written invitation from the band.

Since that night, Low has released seven more albums, including their most recent, The Great Destroyer. What will Mom think of this album cover?