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Jun 12, 2018 By Christopher Roberts Photography by Shelly Mosman Low

Low have announced a new album, Double Negative, and shared videos for three new songs, “Quorum,” “Dancing and Blood,” and “Fly.” Double Negative is due out September 14 via Sub Pop. The three videos were released as one complete 14-minute piece, a triptych, as well as separately. You can experience them both ways below. They are all black & white and atmospheric, with perhaps touches of David Lynch here and there. Also below are the album’s tracklist and cover art, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Double Negative is the follow-up to 2015’s Ones and Sixes. A press release describes Double Negative as Low’s “most brazen, abrasive (and, paradoxically, most empowering) album.” Low (Alan Sparhawk, Mimi Parker, and bassist Steve Garrington) recorded the album at Justin Vernon’s April Base studio in Eau Claire, Wisconsin (where they recorded Ones and Sixes) with producer B.J. Burton (Bon Iver, Lizzo, James Blake, and Francis and the Lights). A press release says the band “knew they wanted to go further with Burton and his palette of sounds: they wanted to see what someone who is, as Sparhawk puts it, ‘a hip-hop guy’ could truly do with their music.”

The “Fly” video was directed by Mark Pellington, who directed the films Arlington Road and The Mothman Prophecies, as well as plenty of music videos, including the iconic one for R.E.M.‘s “Drive.”

Music writer Grayson Currin wrote the band’s bio for this album and described the album as such: “Double Negative is, indeed, a record perfectly and painfully suited for our time. Loud and contentious and commanding, Low fights for the world by fighting against it. It begins in pure bedlam, with a beat built from a loop of ruptured noise waging war against the paired voices of Sparhawk and Parker the moment they begin to sing during the massive ‘Quorum.’ For forty minutes, they indulge the battle, trying to be heard amid the noisy grain, sometimes winning and sometimes being tossed toward oblivion.”

Read our 2015 print magazine interview with Low’s Alan Sparhawk about Ones and Sixes, as well as our 2015 digital magazine bonus Q&A with Sparhawk.

Double Negative Tracklist:

1. Quorum
2. Dancing and Blood
3. Fly
4. Tempest
5. Always Up
6. Always Trying to Work It Out
7. The Son, The Sun
8. Dancing and Fire
9. Poor Sucker
10. Rome (Always in the Dark)
11. Disarray

Low Tour Dates:

Jun. 19 - Leeds, United Kingdom - Brudenell Social
Jun. 20 - London, United Kingdom - Queen Elizabeth Hall (Robert Smith’s Meltdown Festival)
Jun. 23 - Duisburg, Germany - Traumzeit festival
Jun. 25 - Munich, Germany - Ampere
Jun. 26 - Dresden, Germany - Beatpol
Jun. 29 - Bialystok, Poland - Amphitheater of the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic (Halfway Music Festival!)
Sep. 20 - New York, NY - National Sawdust
Sep. 21 - New York, NY - National Sawdust
Sep. 29 - Lisbon, PT - Lisboa ao Vivo
Oct. 01 - De Compostela Santiago, ES - Sala Capitol
Oct. 02 - Madrid, ES - Sala But
Oct. 03 - Barcelona, ES - Fabra i Coats
Oct. 05 - Milan, IT - Teatro Dal Verme
Oct. 06 - Zurich, CH - Bogen F
Oct. 08 - Leipzig, DE - Conne Island
Oct. 09 - Berlin, DE - Festsaal Kreuzberg
Oct. 11 - Brussels, BE - Orangerie (at Botanique)
Oct. 12 - Amsterdam, NL - Paradiso
Oct. 13 - Paris, FR - La Gaîté Lyrique
Oct. 15 - Bristol, UK - Trinity
Oct. 16 - Manchester, UK - Manchester Cathedral
Oct. 17 - Dublin, IE - Vicar Street
Nov. 02 - St. Paul, MN - The Fitz
Nov. 03 - Davenport, IA - Daytrotter
Nov. 05 - Detroit, MI - El Club
Nov. 06 - Toronto, ON - Great Hall
Nov. 08 - Montreal, QC - La Sala Rosa
Nov. 09 - Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall
Nov. 10 - Philadelphia, PA - Underground Arts
Nov. 12 - Washington, DC U Street Music Hall
Nov. 13 - Pittsburgh, PA - The Funhouse
Nov. 14 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
Nov. 16 - Chicago, IL - Rockefeller Chapel
Nov. 17 - Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon

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