"It was really nice. Lots of wood. I think we even used a piano
which was at the side of the stage ," says Low's charming frontman Alan Sparhawk of the band's last visit to St George's Church.
It was fun. Every once in a while
we get the opportunity to play
venues like that and it's always
something we look forward to."
The justly revered Minnesota trio, formed around a core of Sparhawk
and his wife, drummer Mimi Parker, have spent most of their 15-year career
creating harmony-laden post-rock.
"I guess minimalist' is a word that gets used a lot with us," says Sparhawk. "I like finding the simplest form a song can take and still deliver what it
has to do. I've found when I resist
the tendency to add things, usually
I'm happier with how it turns out."
Last year's Drums And Guns album was a return to a more stripped-down sound, after the relatively orthodox - by their standards at least - style
of 2005's The Great Destroyer, which was made with Mercury Rev producer Dave Fridmann at the helm.
"It was kind of conscious. For me Great Destroyer was the peak of Low pushing into the guitar-rock band realm," Sparhawk explains. "I thought if we went in and approached the recording the same way, I already
knew what it was going to sound like.
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"I guess every time we make a record it doesn't seem right unless we're
pushing ourselves and becoming uncomfortable for at least some of it."
The resulting album saw the
band introduce new elements to
their sound, most prominently looped
vocals and drum machines.
"We went in and said, Let's see if
we can come up with something
we're happy with without using the
same instruments we always play.'
It was a new challenge for us
and I'm really happy with how it
turned out," Sparhawk says.
Sparhawk and Parker grew up in rural Minnesota and have retained
a base in the state throughout their career, something the singer feels has influenced their idiosyncratic style.
"We're pretty far north. It's close
to Canada, so we have a long winter. There is something to that," he explains. "There's a culture of spending a third of the year in the basement,
during the winter dark.
"There's some element of isolation
or feeling you are separate from where the action is that maybe breeds
a certain attitude when you're trying to create something. There's a little bit more grind in your teeth when you're trying to fight the big boys."
Although Sparhawk concedes Low's music "isn't quite as shocking" as it once was, when the band started up during the grunge era in the 1990s, their delicate, downbeat sound was at odds with audiences' expectations.
"Sometimes you'd play places where the only people excited you were there was the guy who booked you and two of his friends," he laughs. "That's the way it was back then. It was fun. Sleeping on floors and playing in squats.
"Probably what fuelled a lot of our determination and drive is that there was something to push against. Even
to this day there's a little subconscious light that goes on inside my head
every time I walk up on stage that
is trying to tell me that we're in
a hostile situation. I've got to get over it - it's been quite a few years since we've been heckled."
8pm, £17/£15adv, call Rounder on 01273 325440 or Resident on 01273 606312
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