Best tunes of 2013: #29 Low “Just make it stop”

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In 2013, Duluth, Minnesota-based indie rock act, Low, celebrated their twentieth anniversary as a group by releasing their 10th studio album, “The invisible way”. The trio of Alan Sparhawk (guitars/vocals), Mimi Parker (drums/vocals), and Steve Garrington (bass) enlisted the production help of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy for this outing. Apparently, though, the album didn’t stray too far from the group’s normal template of gentle, minimalist, beautiful tones. I say “apparently” because this is the album for which I first took notice of the group and embraced them. I gave “The invisible way” a thorough run through, ensuring they were thus on my radar for future releases but not going so far as to travel too far down their back catalogue road.

According to Sparhawk, the creative leader of the group, the only glaring differences between this album and the ones that came before was the addition of a lot more piano work and the fact that his partner in crime, Mimi Parker, shifts from her usual support role to take over lead vocals on five of the album’s tracks. Today’s tune, “Just make it stop”, is an example of one of these tracks.

“If I could just make it stop
Breaking my heart
Get out of the way
If I could just make it stop”

The second tune to be teased in advance of the album’s release is mostly driven by Parker’s delicate voice and her just as gentle brushing on the drums but about halfway through, we do get the addition of those aforementioned keys and a bit of bass muscle. Indeed, the song almost creeps into upbeat territory. But let’s stress the word “almost” here. Let’s not get too crazy because this is Low we are talking about, the band that quite possible inspired the term ‘slowcore’. I won’t belabour this, though. Just press play on the video below and let Parker haunt you too.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2013 list, click here.