Life-changing Albums: Low's Songs for a Dead Pilot

A while back I promised a post on Low—the third in my series of “life-changing albums” (part one, part two). I fumbled on the post because, among other excuses, I couldn’t figure out which Low album to talk about. Everything from I Could Live in Hope to Secret Name—four albums, two EPs, innumerable 7”s and compilation appearances—might be worth calling life-changing.”

Then the topic of Low’s best album came up elseweb. I picked The Curtain Hits the Cast and immediately regretted my choice, realizing in a moment of epiphany that my favorite Low album, all along, has been their EP Songs for a Dead Pilot. That was the album that proved Low had more gas in the tank than expected, and that they truly had made an aesthetic leap. No other band, and no other album, better illustrated the idea of setting up parameters as a special kind of freedom.

I discovered Low by chance. I picked up their first album solely because I liked its cover. This was some time in 1994 or 1995, when I was getting out of my metal years and looking for something else. Coming from metal, it doesn’t get much more “something else” than the eleven lullabies that are I Could Live in Hope. It was a beautiful record—probably the first album I’ve ever owned that could be described as such. I listened to it unendingly and really felt a kind of ache in songs like “Words” or “Lazy.”

In a way my embrace of Low could be seen as a direct reaction to my love of Drive Like Jehu. As I said about that band, who I also consider life-changing, they killed rock music for me. They executed my idea of rock music so perfectly that I simply had no need for other bands treading in loud/fast territory. Where else to go but Low? Over the next three years the band perfected their approach to their sound, with the colder, darker Long Division and their masterpiece, The Curtain Hits the Cast, in which the band’s lyrics gained added dimension and their musical continuum seemed to reach its plateau in the somnambulant epic “Do You Know How to Waltz?”.

As good as Low was—and despite their steady perfection of their sound—it was becoming difficult to imagine remaining a fan beyond that album. Reviews, even the good ones, were routinely dismissive—“Low is really slow!”—as if nothing more needed to be said. Lines like that got my dander up but at the same time, how many more Curtains did the band really have left before the whole thing became redundant?

And so we come to Songs for a Dead Pilot, a statement of intent if ever I’ve heard one. By ditching their producer (Kramer), the band eliminated the pristine sheen that was draped across each of their other albums. Staying true to their explicitly stated parameters—play slow—Songs for a Dead Pilot nevertheless broke the band into new emotional territory: tension, anger, disappointment, resentment. These feelings lurked under their previous songs (such as “Mom Said” from Curtain), but they were hidden beneath that sheen of perfection. Perfect harmonies, delicate musicianship. Maybe it's a subtle shift, but Songs moved from delicate to fragile.

Beginning with Songs, the band chose to expose their flaws. Mimi stopped double-tracking her vocals, making her voice sound more human, less angelic. Alan stretched his vocals further (“Landlord”), practically flaunting the fact that he is hardly as good a vocalist as his wife. You can also hear the band paying closer attention to every small sound their instruments make. Listen to "Born by the Wires," and how Alan plays that one chord over and over for nearly ten minutes. Every strum of that muddy chord is just a little different, calling attention to each individual note and the way his pick hits the strings. No song better illustrates the band's progression. They made a conscious decision to become more raw and more explicitly minimalist, as opposed to merely minimal, as their prior albums could be described.

Perhaps this was always the band’s intent. But it was Songs that allowed me my personal epiphany. Low’s approach to music is like Zeno’s paradox: no matter how small the space, there is always further to go. They’re not interested, like Slint for instance, in expressing themselves through dramatic dynamics. This becomes a kind of limitation that sets Low free. In a sense they're like a musical embodiment of Albert Camus' Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was damned by the gods to push a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back to the bottom each time he reached the top, for eternity. Where one might view that as a kind of hell, Camus made it a metaphor for the aburdity of life; accepting his fate, Sisyphus eventually would have no expectation that his boulder would do anything other than fall down that hill. Locked into his routine, he certainly must have come to know any variety of emotions beyond despair. As Camus wrote, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." Songs for a Dead Pilot, while certainly not a happy record, nevertheless finds Low embracing a similar philosophy. Knowing that their sound is limited to certain rules, they must now find aesthetic fulfillment within those parameters. Songs for a Dead Pilot took a slight left turn from the trajectory Low had been on; just enough to show that they could go anywhere they pleased.

Comments

[sroden]

"Songs for a Dead Pilot took a slight left turn from the trajectory Low had been on; just enough to show that they could go anywhere they pleased."

unfortunately where they pleased wasn't so ...um ...pleasing...

for me, pilot was also an incredible leap forward - the skronky-ness was such a great addition to their previous sheen; and going back to that discussion of clap your hands blah blah, this was a truly experimental record for low, because you can actually hear them experimenting! it's raw, and it gives the band a whole new feeling of being real.

i even thought secret name was good - kind of some steps forward and some steps back (and, in my humble opinion, the greatest truly pop sounding song they've ever made - immune)... but i can't stand anything they've done since

[Richard]

Secret Name was the first Low record I bought, and since then, I've gone backwards and been happy for it.... I've never bought Songs for a Dead Pilot, though. Now I think I probably will. Incidentally, I love Things They Lost in the Fire, but other than that, I agree with sroden. Both Trust and, um, what's the one after that? Anyway, both of them, while not awful, leave me feeling sort of meh.

[Richard]

Oh, also: I enjoyed this post.

[scott pgwp]

An earlier draft of this post had me going back to that CYHSY conversation from a week or two back, but it was becoming too tangential. Nevertheless there is a VERY obvious comparison to be made between the albums, and particularly the opening tracks; as you say, it's a good way to show what it means to actually experiment and to pose as experimental. "Will the Night" is an immediate comment to all of Low's previous material: "we're going somewhere new!"

I think they continued that trajectory with Secret Name, and to some extent Things We Lost in the Fire, although that's the album that I finally felt like I'd had enough.

Someone who knows their later material better than me might be able to take this idea further. Personally, I think they've been diverted to less interesting territory, based on what I've heard of the last two albums.

Richard, I'd be interested to hear what you think of Songs for a Dead Pilot considering Secret Name was your entry point for the band. I feel that Secret Name grew directly out of ideas set up in Songs. I'm curious to see if you feel, going backward, that Songs sounds ambitious or half-baked.

[bdr]

Terrific post.

I'm curious - are you into Red House Painters and Mojave 3 (or Neil Halstead's solo stuff)?

I know they're sorta second cousins three times removed from Low, but in my own disorganized mental files I think of them as related.

[jeremy]

This is my favorite Low album as well, but I think it took me a bit to realize it.

I love this, secret name, and fire a lot. the latter two really do grow out of songs, and I love them both. fire didn't bore me at all.

[scott pgwp]

j - I don't dislike Fire, just ambivalent to it. Never heard Trust and really disliked everything I've heard from the last two.

bdr - I have Halstead's Sleeping on Roads and am familiar with the Red House Painters and Mojave 3 stuff, though I can't say I'm a huge fan of any of it. Not bad, just never hooked me. Halstead in particular makes me want to listen to Nick Drake instead.