David Bowie
Low

The Sonic Existentialism of an Emotionally Unstable Alien

or "how Bowie traversed himself to invent new suburban sounds and managed to survive"

Where the river ends said the poet this story begins. And this is not just any story, but that of an almost-person who one fine day (or perhaps a bad day) decided to face head-on all his ghosts, his paranoias, and his dependencies (not only physical but also mental, cultural, musical) and in doing so changed the history of all music.

Our story takes place in 1977, a time of great socio-musical shifts, and begins with a completely exhausted Thin White Duke from the White Light Tour and especially from the set of the film "The Man Who Fell to Earth". All he had in his hands were phobias, obsessions, an unhealthy mania for the occult and Nazism, an overwhelming past to escape from, a ruthless Los Angeles to forget, a lot of cocaine, and the aborted and rejected soundtrack of the aforementioned Nicholas Roeg film. The story could have ended with another rock world death, in the singer's own words, and yet a certain Brian Eno arrives to save that talent, but above all that man, first taking him to the old Chateau D'Herouville, a haunted and dark French castle, then to the underground of a Berlin in full musical and cultural revolution (there are Neu!, Kraftwerk, the early new wave, and punk). The musicians are the same as the previous album, but what changes this time is the artists' intention in approaching music, or rather its theory: in "Low", punk attitudes clash (during this period Bowie is heavily influenced by his roommate Iggy Pop) with oblique methodologies brought by the mind of Brian Eno, or rather Brain Eno. In Berlin, the artist's shadow reflecting on the Wall is anonymous, allowing him to go unnoticed and dedicate himself entirely to his project of dashed sound fragments and lugubrious and introspective instrumental suites.

The album is entirely conceptual, not in a narrative but in a sonic sense. In the first half, after the instrumental and engaging opening of "Speed Of Life", we chase what we can vaguely define as songs and that are, in truth, reflections on a desperate search for love ("Be My Wife", "What In The World") and artistic inspiration (I will sing waiting for the gift of sound and vision drifting into my solitude, from "Sound And Vision") in an electronic panorama of transformed guitars and android percussion. The central theme is a problematic ego (Such a wonderful person, but you got problems) that critically confronts itself (Don't look at the carpet, I drew something awful on it recalls the fixation on drawing cabalistic symbols everywhere) to recall self-destructive episodes and exorcize them (I was just going round and round the hotel garage reveals in the beautiful and spectral "Always Crashing In The Same Car"). The process of detoxification and maturing of the self has just begun, and we will have to wait for "Scary Monsters And Super Creeps" of 1980 to see it completed.

On the second side of the record, we witness a true theory of ghosts, proceeding relentlessly, mysteriously, sometimes whispered, other times solemn, along the keyboards and synthesizers of the electronic wizard. The introspection becomes even deeper and transforms into an urgency for a new life ("A New Career In A New Town") in the suburban desolation of Eastern Europe (the grim and incomprehensible words of "Warszawa" and the saxophones of "Subterraneans"). The atmospheres that the musicians manage to evoke are not only dark and alienating but also lucid ("Art Decade"), cold and warm at the same time (as suggested by vibraphones and xylophones in "Weeping Wall").

One could say a thousand and one other things about "Low" (for example, that it is still current), and together they wouldn't be worth even half of its note: one cannot rationally express a journey into the inner terror of a man with a lacerated existence, a subway journey through a new wave of European decay, the foresight of an unstable and trembling future made by an alien who fell to earth at the speed of life, to the roar of sound...

from "What In The World"
"So deep in your room,
You never leave your room
Something deep inside of me
Yearning deep inside of me
Talking through the gloom
What in the world can you do"

ps: to those who wish to delve deeper, I recommend reading the "Uncut" article titled "Trans Europe Excess", accessible at these links from velvet goldmine :

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