David Bowie- Low

David Bowie
Low
(180g Black Vinyl)
Release: 1977
Re-release: 2018

Track Listing:

1. Speed Of LifeB
2. Breaking Glass
3. What In The World
4. Sound And Vision
5. Always Crashing In The Same Car
6. Be My Wife
7. A New Career In A New Town
8. Warszawa
9. Art Decade
10. Weeping Wall
11. Subterraneans

More Info:
Low inaugurates David Bowie’s legendary Berlin Trilogy and remains one of the most radical, influential artistic rebirths in popular music history. Fleeing the cocaine psychosis of Los Angeles to find sobriety and sonic reinvention in Europe, Bowie teamed up with co-producer Tony Visconti and ambient pioneer Brian Eno, recording primarily at the Château d'Hérouville in France before mixing at Hansa Studios by the Wall in West Berlin. Structurally daring and intentionally schizophrenic, the vinyl LP divides cleanly into two distinct aesthetic worlds. Side A offers fragmented, jagged avant-pop vignettes like "Speed of Life," "Sound and Vision," and "Be My Wife," where Ricky Gardiner’s slashing guitars and Carlos Alomar’s tight rhythm chops clash against Eno’s EMS Synthi AKS sweeps and Bowie's detached, yearning vocals. The secret weapon across Side A is Visconti's groundbreaking use of the Eventide H910 Harmonizer on Dennis Davis’ snare drum, feeding pitch-shifted delay back into the transients to create a mechanical, descending "thwack" that essentially invented the sound of 1980s post-punk and new wave percussion. Flip to Side B, and the pop structures dissolve completely into sweeping, melancholic ambient instrumental suites like "Warszawa," "Art Decade," and "Subterraneans," where Eno’s tape-delay synthesizer washes, church-like choral overdubs, and Bowie’s haunting saxophone evoke the gray chill of the Cold War and the isolation of the human mind. Pressed to vinyl, the dynamic contrast between Side A's punchy, dry rhythm section and Side B's vast, reverberant stereophonic soundstage makes Low an unassailable masterwork of futuristic art rock.