Where am I?

Emeralds - Does It Look Like I'm Here?

I started off really disliking this album. Every song sounded like it was just an amalgamation of the microkorg's arpeggiator presets with nothing original or interesting happening anywhere.

I changed my mind. While I still hold that there is an element of that going on here, there's also a lot more on show. Perhaps cause it's midnight and I'm in a more agreeable state or for some other reason but the previously boring montages of obvious arpeggios now sound rich and emotional. The sound world is vast and nothing competes for attention, everything sits neatly in the mix, living out it's natural life cycle then disappearing for something else to become the natural and subtle heir to the listener's attention.

Yeah, thumbs up. Not particularly attention grabbing but given the right setting, positioning of the hands on the clock and perhaps correct ingested substances, this album could be a more than worthy companion.

C'mon

I hold a lot of respect for Low. They've been making beautiful music for many more years than most bands could hope to stay intact. 2007's Drums and Guns was a veritable masterpiece and a marked move away from the majority of their back catalogue which stuck fairly rigidly to the slowcore drums, bass, guitar and two part harmonies. Before that came The Great Destroyer, another move away from their trademark in favour of a more traditionally "rock" sound. Following these two releases comes their new album, C'mon, and it's as if these two albums never happened. The cover art gives some clue as to what's happened here. Gone is the change up of style and they appear to have been inspired by touring to retreat back to what's familiar, the natural sounds of their core live components.

This is not to say that the resulting music is inferior but I do wonder if they've slipped back into what was beginning to seem like somewhat of a rut. Admittedly, "rut" implies a lack of motivation and ability to create consistently moving music, attributes Low are certainly not lacking. Perhaps Sparhawk and co have made a decision to leave the instrumentation exploration to side projects such as The Hospital People but the inner cynicism is still prodding me with accusations of retreating into the safety of the sound world they established for themselves in the 90s.

In practical terms, there's a new set of Low songs brimming with the exact qualities that make them such a treasure and it's hard to complain too much about that. Apart from the banjo on "Witches". I fucking hate banjos.

Here's something to lighten the mood:

From now I think I'll be attempting to do some small review of an album I listen to each day, followed by something horrific from /b/.