Robert Lowe might be recognized for his work with 90 Day Men and his
involvement with TV on the Radio. As a solo performer Lowe contacts the
sublime and unspeakable, evoking masses of digital voices recorded from
wastelands, deserts, and temples.
Kranky
The melodies and soundscapes that
emerge from the meshing of his guitar and processed vocals acknowledge
some eastern influence, but also fall somewhere within the American
folk tradition, wandering without being lost. The Psychic Nature of Being
begs for a cerebral consideration of Lowe's music; the title of the
songs and the mood established within bubble over with philosophical
and mystical musings, each one equally appropriate for quiet
meditation, writing, or sleeping. "Kirilian Auras," named after a
controversial photographic technique that claims to capture auras on
film, begins with the moan of electricity and life, slowly escaping the
lungs and distorting in the air, fractured into phrases and loops that
being to roll over one another. Soon Lowe adds his gentle guitar, it
seems to mimic that vocal patterns crashing into one another, but it
also offers a reference and a kind of solace in its easy rolling. The
combination of his choral, digital sounds and his acoustic picking are
hypnotizing, producing the image of rain falling, the soul escaping its
shell, or the long journey between unfamiliar cities, the rhythm of
walking and observing in accordance with peace. At times the flow of
music sounds like the low piping of Japanese flutes and the whistle and
bend of impossible instruments break over them, holding the composition
in place and freezing the moment of music in an unshakable lift. The
brilliantly titled "You Are Excrement If You Can Turn Yourself Into
Gold" closes the disc and offers a glimpse of the eastern world Lowe
surely must've envisioned in the process of creating this album. A
guitar, played as though it were a gong being struck, tolls underneath
the trill and snap of a slippery melody. Softly the piece fades into a
nocturnal scene, populated by bells and the easy manner of evening
activities. Lowe builds the song into an echoed mesh of melody, noise,
and simple flucuations until its weaving body harmonizes as a constant
in and of itself. Nothing could be removed or added from the song, as
it stands it is the perfect picture of a misty landscape and does
nothing short of photograph peace as a movement. It isn't meant to be
gold, it's object isn't to be beautiful, but to be. Thus Lowe avoids
excrement and utility and ascends to pure music, reaching for an
essence and doing everything possible to represent it as something any
ear will find familiar. It might be argued that drones have little else
to do but die away as a tried and true means of recording the ephemeral
happenings missed by so many, but Lowe's use of the constant sound is
something else; when his tones are stretched out, they do more than
just provide a space for sound, they mix intimately with his more
musical work and create a sound that's entirely unique and far more
deserving of the association with old America and its story-telling
tradition than any other "weird" American outfit. In fact, the term
"lichen" refers to symbiosis, relationships of mutual benefit. To
achieve the level of intimacy he has on this record without lyrics
requires a level of sophistication and nuance, and that is exactly what
Lowe has done on his debut by mixing and considering two very different
worlds and finding that they aren't so distant.
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