Editor’s Note: From Albumism’s inception back in 2016, we’ve remained unabashedly and unequivocally passionate about our mission of celebrating the world's love affairs with albums past, present and future.

But while our devotion to the album as an art form has remained steadfast, as evidenced by our deepening repository of individual album tributes and reviews, we’ve admittedly seldom taken the opportunity to explicitly articulate our reverence for the virtues of artists’ complete album repertoires as a whole.

Hence why we’ve decided to showcase what we believe to be the most dynamic discographies of all time in this recurring series. In doing so, we hope to better understand the broader creative context within which our most beloved individual albums exist, while acknowledging the full breadth of their creators’ artistry, career arcs, and overall contributions to the ever-evolving musical landscape.

We hope you enjoy this series and be sure to check here periodically for the latest installments.

LOW

Much like the magic of falling snow, the sounds of Low are an ethereal tonic. They don’t just inhabit a sacred space, they create real intimacy between artist and audience—instantly recalibrating the way I take in music.

Prior to hearing I Could Live in Hope, the Minnesota-based trio’s 1994 debut, I was inclined to turn everything all the way up, yearning to be smothered in—and feel the fullness of—every song. And while I still wholeheartedly enjoy losing myself to the loudness of my favorite tunes, Low, with their own tireless restraint, instilled a unique kind of thrill—a reason to reach for the quiet.

The first two Low albums are glacially, hauntingly, even challengingly slow. But, if you permit yourself the freedom to feel them, they’ll ensconce you in endless beauty. Immediately fascinated by their provocative minimalism—how such sparseness could captivate my mind—I found myself indulging the concept. Outfitted with headphones on my dorm room bed, I’d tick the volume lower and lower. And when Low were just a trace in my ears, on the line of audible and imagined, I knew I’d discovered something completely sublime. Drawing the sound inward and trusting my own being to fill the hollows—the intersection is indescribable. Or at least it was until I heard Alan Sparhawk, co-singer and guitarist, refer to music as a celestial language, and I thought I couldn’t agree more.

Now in their 29th year as a band, Low have traversed three labels and released 12 studio albums and nearly as many EPs, not to mention contributed to numerous compilations in the form of one-offs and covers. And, as they wound from Vernon Yard to Kranky to Sub Pop, touring relentlessly throughout (and at one point opening for Radiohead), their sound steadily progressed.

Low shows, in their nascent years, were a strange sight. Often, fans cozied up on the floor before the stage, prepared for the night of hushed communion that would soon take place. But, as early as their third album, The Curtain Hits the Cast (1996), Low started getting noisier—if in a suffused, tempered, drone-y kind of way.

And by the decade’s end, when they issued Secret Name (1999), they’d shifted gears yet again, veering toward mainstream territory with more conventional song structures—a trend they’d stay with for the first half of the aughts. Things We Lost in the Fire (2001), Trust (2002) and The Great Destroyer (2005) all boast eminently hummable tunes that are richer and bigger than those stark incipient jewels. And yet, certain Low trademarks—namely, the vocal harmonies of Sparhawk and co-singer/drummer/wife Mimi Parker and the group’s tight three-piece structure—manage to keep their aesthetic intact despite their evolution.

Even with Double Negative (2018), perhaps their most distorted, Lynchian work to date, they are undeniably Low—always treading the aching expanse of humanity.

Rayna’s 3 Favorite Low Albums of All Time:

1. I Could Live in Hope (1994)
2. The Curtain Hits the Cast (1996)
3. Trust (2002)

VISIT Low’s Official Store

LISTEN & WATCH: