LOW – HEY WHAT

F*CK. ME. This is it.

Then again: it’s Low so what do we expect? And when do you listen to Low?

They’re a band I can’t play any time or too often because they’re just too intense, too special – especially those last two albums. Low seem to have a direct line to something way deeper than the rest of us. After pressing play on Hey What in the car, I become aware that the opening track White Horses builds in noise and distortion completely in sync with the incline and the gradually emerging, slowly unfolding landscape. Urbanity receding, wild moors welcoming. Beautiful. No, more than that: awesome. This happens to be an ultimate convergence of emotive music and scenery.

But if that wasn’t enough – and it would have been, easily – there’s a divine intervention from the goddess of good timing. White Horses hits peak distortion and noise saturation around 2 minutes 15 seconds – the exact moment a turn round a blind bend reveals the top of the world in full, unending glory.

Breath taken? Damn right. The combination of sound and vision is huge, which explains the F bomb earlier. Rendered speechless.

Low’s fragmented, techno-glitch density opens portals to a parallel universe. But the effect that comes from wrapping their fragile/euphoric harmonising within and around such sonic manipulation is unfathomable and unexplainable. It’s why Hey What and Double Negative transcend so much other music. It’s electro-noise gospel. Those albums just cannot be played in casual conditions that lessen the mystique. They need to be played with intent: night darkness with volume cranked, wild walks in storm force gales, the deepest of snows and winter freezes

or a moody overcast drive on the Cat and Fiddle.

More Music for Cat and Fiddle here.