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Rating: Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, a 1975 record, and reissued by 4AD in 1986, hovers in the piece Warszawa as if it had been listened to somehow, considering that Low is from '77, extrapolating the most meditative and liturgical passages of the Bulgarian ensemble. The record (the Bulgarian one), when listened to in its entirety, is quite a bore, as tedious as Bowie's previous (and subsequent) works, a fact Bowie may have realized, prompting him to create Low as a redemption record for himself and for us.
The result is magnificently meditative, devoid of religious connotations. A trance from the beyond, but communicatively accessible, already presents itself from its rock pieces on the first side with a halo of nostalgia from elsewhere that reaches the listener, outside of the pathetic, outside of the saccharine. The exaggeration of the second side is that there are no more tricks, no glamorous makeup, nor psychic mystery without hodgepodge sonic alchemies.
Where David used to wear more makeup than Amanda Lear, here there is no trace of mystifying pigments. An originality finally purer visits the Duke who expresses himself freely, and it is felt. There is not even the withdrawal from an exhibitionism with an expiration date, there is no theatricality of costume changes à la Fregoli, simply there is no thought of appearing, no thinking at all. You find yourself in that suspension and naturally, you feel at home, you feel good. No longer is there an atmosphere, an idea, there is an immobility where the ancient child within us resurfaces, without any sensationalist flights of fancy.
It's no coincidence that the record, released on January 14, 1977, fulfills that conscious presence that Saturn brings in Capricorn, and that Bowie, born and died a Capricorn, files down that heaviness of the rings (of Saturn), doing transcendental fitness on the first side to prepare for the anaerobic second side, where surrendering leads to a sweet disappearance, a transition into rarefied zones where we make peace with the exhibitionism of the biological vehicle and vanities are no longer at the service of monetization.
No more tallying up, no more making accounts because the innkeeper doesn't exist, no more excitement from the jingling of coins. Gold becomes an intangible thing that does not exacerbate thirst for vindication. Well done, our David, who here, and only here, manages to give equal value to all things, transmitting the vision from inside his heterochromatic eyes.
There is sanctity in the collaboration with Eno, an eternal fan of CAN, so to speak. The musical rendering is differently refined as if carelessly leaving the microphone on, unknowingly recording moments of timeless freedom: "Trying to find the inner life of the things that interest me."
Even if shamelessly at the service of the Monarch project, surely that was quite a guy, the man who fell to Earth...
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Breaking Glass (01:52)
Baby, I've been, breaking glass in your room again
Listen
Don't look at the carpet, I drew something awful on it
See
You're such a wonderful person
But you got problems oh-oh-oh-oh
I'll never touch you
04 Sound and Vision (03:03)
Don't you wonder sometimes
About sound and vision
Blue, blue, electric blue
That's the color of my room
Where I will live
Blue, blue
Pale blinds drawn on day
Nothing to do
Nothing to say
I will sit right down
Waiting for the gift
Of sound and vision
And I will sing
Waiting for the gift
Of sound and vision
Drifting into my solitude
Over my head
Don't you wonder sometimes
About sound and vision
05 Always Crashing in the Same Car (03:33)
Every chance, every chance that I take
I take it on the road
Those kilometers and the red lights
Never looking left or right
Oh, but I'm always crashing in the same car
Jasmine, I saw you creeping
As I pushed my foot down to the floor
Round and round the hotel garage
Must have been touching close to 94
Oh, but I'm always crashing in the same car
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
06 Be My Wife (02:56)
Sometimes you get so lonely
Sometimes you get nowhere
I've lived all over the world
I've lived every place
Please be mine
Share my life
Stay with me
Be my wife
Sometimes you get so lonely
Sometimes you get nowhere
I've lived all over the world
I've left every place
Please be mine
Share my life
Stay with me
Be my wife
Sometimes you get so lonely
08 Warszawa (06:23)
Mmmm-mm-mm-ommm
Sula vie dilejo
Mmmm-mm-mm-ommm
Sula vie milejo
Mmm-omm
Cheli venco deho
Cheli venco deho
Malio
Mmmm-mm-mm-ommm
Helibo seyoman
Cheli venco raero
Malio
Malio
11 Subterraneans (05:41)
Share bride failing star
Care-line
Care-line
Care-line
Care-line driving me
Shirley, Shirley, Shirley own
Share bride failing star
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Other reviews
By Ghemison
Perhaps words cannot describe such wonder.
An absolute masterpiece by Bowie who, thanks also to the talent of non-musician Brian Eno and the truly unique city where the project was born, reaches great heights between inspiration and experimentalism.
By Venexiana1
This is an album that speaks of a melodramatic and seductive turning point; the turn of the white duke who becomes electro-demonic.
To (trans)gress, here is the passphrase of the duke; here is the mad vehicle we will have to get used to from here to eternity.
By Dune Buggy
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.
In 'Low,' punk attitudes clash with oblique methodologies brought by Brian Eno's mind, creating dashed sound fragments and introspective instrumental suites.
By GordonPym
When the alien David Bowie, restless astronaut of the deepest spaces of the human soul, encounters the musical architect of perfect cosmic spaces Brian Eno, an extraordinary album emerges.
Subterraneans is a mysterious and dark sound world that captures and attracts you to itself, ending with a non-language language, as if it were the voice of the Übermensch.
