There is something deeply weird about seeing four people onstage at a Low gig. In recent years, it has often seemed as if Alan Sparhawk, in particular, has sought to transcend or subvert people’s expectations of how Low should sound. Surely, though, filling out the sound with a keyboard player is tantamount to sacrilege? As it turns out, the recruitment of Eric Pollard, who also plays drums alongside Sparhawk and bassist Steve Garrington in Retribution Gospel Choir, mostly works just fine. His keyboard work is largely restricted to discreet drones, barely noticeable. It’s only when he’s not playing – on something as brutal as “Majesty/Magic”, say – that you realise how much of Low’s signature sound depended on space between the notes. Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s great talent, though, has been to slowly modify Low’s signature sound; they have, after all, been adding textures since “Songs For A Dead Pilot”, nearly 15 years ago. Pollard’s most notable innovation, perhaps – besides his aesthetically jarring red spectacles – is his harmonies, which slip in from time to time to flesh out the patented Sparhawk/Parker blend. Again, discretion is key, and Pollard never detracts from the uncanny husband/wife harmonies. On “Something’s Turning Over”, though, his presence crystallises the song’s relationship with the genteel end of the ‘60s folk revival: Low sound, remarkably, like the Peter, Paul & Mary of the apocalypse. This excellent, longish show begins with a set piece display of their new power: a short “Le Noise” squall from Sparhawk, then a hefty version of “Nothing But Heart”, as pummelling as the version on “C’Mon”, even without the assistance of Nels Cline. Not for the last time tonight, the sheer volume of the harmonies is striking, as is the precision with which the quartet play. For much of the gig, Sparhawk gives the compelling impression of a man who can only just hold his Neil Young fantasies in check: on “Witches”, in particular, the tension between Low’s tight structures and his possible heroics seems palpable. After nearly an hour and a half he does crack, more or less, on “Violent Past” and “Breaker”, the latter sounding as much like its Retribution Gospel Choir incarnation as the Low original take. There’s a sense, though, that the band are constantly reworking all their songs: although they play all of “C’Mon”, much of it has evolved – become darker, perhaps – now. “Especially Me”, for instance, has an ominous, thrumming undertow to it which it shares with “Monkey” and “Canada” here. Elsewhere, Parker’s drumkit might not have expanded, but her technique has, so that “You See Everything” has a charming jazz shuffle going on. Always, though, there’s that meticulous and overarching grasp of dynamics, with the core value of the band always visible. Along with “Canada”, the encore features “Two Step”, “Laser Beam” and “That’s How You Sing Amazing Grace”, spare and brilliant reiterations of how the Parker/Sparhawk blend is one of the most distinctive and, to me at least, powerful sounds of the last 20 years. As mentioned relentlessly (cryptically or otherwise) these past few weeks, I’ve been playing the new Gillian Welch album a lot, and it strikes me there are strange congruities between the Low pair and Welch and David Rawlings: all those Neil Young and Richard & Linda Thompson allusions; the intuitive harmonies and a calm musical aesthetic which might tentatively be described as passionate austerity. Whatever, “C’Mon” and “The Harrow And The Harvest” are two of the year’s best, I’d say, and this was a fine show. Anyone else there? SETLIST 1 Nothing But Heart 2 Nightingale 3 You See Everything 4 Monkey 5 Silver Rider 6 Witches 7 Especially 8 $20 9 Pissing 10 Last Snowstorm Of The Year 11 Try To Sleep 12 Done 13 Majesty/Magic 14 Something’s Turning Over 15 California 16 Breaker 17 Violent Past ~ 18 Two Step 19 That’s How You Sing Amazing Grace 20 Canada 21 Laser Beam

It occurred to me yesterday that I’m pretty bad at covering singles here, having neglected one of my favourite tracks of the year – Radiohead’s “Supercollider” – as a consequence, and also having passed over a bunch of rather good Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy one-offs (the latest in that sequence, “There Is No God”, arrived at the end of last week). Yesterday, though, I came across a couple of especially noteworthy singles, constituting as they did the first new music released by Van Dyke Parks under his own name for a good 15 years – since his underrated Brian Wilson collab, “Orange Crate Art”, I suspect. Serendipity strikes, perhaps, given that I wrote about interviewing Parks around that time in the current issue of Uncut, tying it in to a Wild Mercury Sound column on Robert Stillman’s “Machine’s Song”, a record heavy with “Song Cycle” vibes. In the interim, Parks’ energies seem to have been focused – as far as I can recall – on music and arrangements rather than wordsmithery: I’m thinking of his shifts with Vic Chesnutt and Inara George, and especially his wonderful scores for Joanna Newsom’s “Ys”. I’m struggling with regards to his lyric-writing, though I don’t have particularly fond memories of his contributions to Brian Wilson’s “That Lucky Old Sun”. A new Van Dyke Parks website/label called Bananastan does, however, usher in the full artistic return of this brilliant and capricious singer-songwriter. The plan, as far as I understand, is to release six new and apparently disparate seven-inch singles over the year, each packaged in some high-end bespoke artwork. The first two are available now (I must confess to buying the downloads rather than the actual objets), with sleeves by Ed Ruscha and Art Spiegelman. And, happily, they’re pretty great, especially “Wall Street”, a substantially rococo piece of warped Gershwin/evocation of old Broadway, that flourishes into a macabre reverie where “confetti is covered in blood”. If “That Lucky Old Sun” – and, come to think of it, much of “Orange Crate Art” – privileged wordplay and more nostalgia than mischief, “Wall Street” is as weird and impressionistic and compelling as “Song Cycle”-era Parks. The flipside, “Money Is King”, hovers around similar subject matter, but is delivered as a kind of baroque calypso, which is great if, as I do, you like “Clang Of The Yankee Reaper”. The other single, “Dreaming Of Paris”, begins with – what else? – an accordion riff, and wanders with a quaint elegance into similar melodic territory to “Summer In Monterey”. Before, that is, a brief tonal shift into French chanson, and a selection of other grand themes (a little Hot Club fiddle in there, at one point, perhaps) that less adventurous musicians would’ve smuggled away for entirely separate songs. The instrumental “Wedding In Madagascar”, meanwhile, is as tropical and celebratory as its title. And while, like all these tracks, the sound is a little more synthesised and pert than the woody analogue feel that would be my preference, it’s still really charming; whimsical not being a pejorative for once. As ever, let me know your thoughts if/when you’ve had a listen