I was quite late to the table in discovering the band Low, initially unmoved by descriptions of their music as "somnambulistic" and/or "slowcore." Their brand of allegedly sleepy indie rock didn't seem to be the type of high-octane idiocy that I was normally intent on consuming, at the time.
But then a friend hipped my very dumb ears to a track off their 2005 album, The Great Destroyer, that was both NYC-centric (which I'm always a big sucker for) and languid in the most hypnotic of ways. I was instantly hooked, snapping up each successive album after that ...and they were quite prolific.
There are several songs by Low that I consider incredibly affecting, "Nothing But Heart," "Over the Ocean," "Broadway (So Many People)" being primarily among them, but all their music is well worth your time.
Earlier this week, Mimi Parker -- partner of singer/guitarist Alan Sparhawk and a crucial third of Low -- passed away from ovarian caner. Beyond the percussion she provided, the haunting harmonies you hear in all their songs were all hers, and I cannot imagine anyone replacing her. It's a tragic loss.
In reading all the obits this week, however, I was struck by one recurring annoyance. I’m usually entirely too quick to point out peskily pedantic minutia (I recently invoked the ire of a nation of Vans-shod, wallet-chain wearers on Facebook by correcting a SPIN article that called NOFX “seminal” “trailblazers,” when absolutely neither term applies to NOFX in the slightest), but I cannot stop myself from asserting that the very last word anyone should really invoke when eulogizing the late Mimi Parker is the aforementioned word “slowcore,” a term she and Sparhawk probably loathe more than Andrew Eldridge hates the word “goth.” One of Stereogum's pieces on her spent its entire first graph feverishly compartmentalizing alleged sub-genres and earmarking them with supposed definitive progenitors of each.
STOP WORRYING ABOUT HOW THE BAND FITS INTO YOUR COSY LITTLE SCHEMATA OF PROPOSED CATEGORIZATION AND DO THEM THE COURTESY OF JUDGING THEM BY THEIR MUSIC ALONE!
I mean, I’m guilty of it myself .. I invoked “slowcore” in the first or second sentence of this friggin' post, but only to suggest that the inane descriptor put me right off the notion of every listening to them. But it was the experience of hearing them that made all the difference.
I was somewhat surprised to learn, a day or so ago, that Robert Plant (whose solo career I'd sort of stopped following) had recorded a cover of Low's "Monkey," another amazing track off of The Great Destroyer. He did a lovely job of it (and how odd must it be to hear Robert Plant cover your song?), but it just made me want to experience the original again. As such, I disappeared down a Low rabbit hole, this week, rediscovering the singularly tranquil joys of their music.
Below is a video I posted here back in 2011, but I'm re-invoking it because it finds Mimi on lead vocals and is a lovely cinematic tribute to New York City's own mass transit system.
Rest in piece, Mimi Parker. You are irreplaceable.
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