The Goon Sax's album is not the only fine record that comes out today. There's also Double Negative, the twelfth album from Low. The two records couldn't be more different really, apart from the basic fact that they're both made by trios composed of two men and a woman. Otherwise they sound like albums made from the opposite end of life's experiential spectrum, We're Not Talking a record made by teenagers reluctant to give up on adolescent feeling and wrestling with the prospect of breaking through to adulthood while Double Negative is their middle-aged parents response, full of static and unease and awareness of death, not something that intrudes on the Goon Sax record for a moment.
Low are a band who've always determinedly trodden their own path. I don't know all of their records but I've liked every single one that I've ever heard. And I very much like this one. A few years back I saw them play at an All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Minehead and they exuded a calm but spectral presence throughout their set. There was humour there, particularly in frontman Alan Sparhawk's between song patter but there was also gravitas. He mentioned Syria, which was then in the early stages of violent war throes. That's seven years or more back and the spectre of Syria is still with us.
Double Negative is a fraught album, streaked with the contradictions of modern existence. There's beauty there, the songs are artfully constructed, but there's also a continual crackle, a dark undertow. Their may also be humour too in the title of the record perhaps a reference to America's current 'idiot in chief' and comments he made a few months ago about Russia. In every way it's a very modern record, trying to take the basic backdrop of guitar, drums, bass and vocals somewhere else through the wonderful medium of studio technology. It's highly successful in that respect, at least to my ears,. I wasn't entirely clear of what its concerns might be, whatever they are don't really matter, the record expresses them powerfully. Perhaps The Guardian's glowing review might give some clues. Anyhow, it held me totally captivated on listening through it in its entirety at my desk with my headphones on this morning, midway through September as Autumn falls.
I'm not sure which record I'll listen more to over the coming months, The Goon Sax one or the Low one. They're both excellent visions in incredibly different ways. The Goon Sax one deals in simpler emotions while Low wrestles with the complexity. I recommend them both highly for different moods. Who says the best music has already been made?
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