Low’s Double Negative is one of my favorite albums of 2018 so far (read my review). Furthermore, it’s one of the best and most intriguing albums in the band’s nearly three-decade-long career. With Double Negative, the slowcore pioneers don’t evolve their sound so much as disintegrate it, running their trademark minimal, pristine arrangements through a barrage of abrasive, distorted electronics — and it works brilliantly.
At least, it works in the studio. But Low has always been a stellar live act, so how well does their new sonic direction, which relies so heavily on studio manipulation, translate to a live setting? Pretty well, as it turns out, going by this recent performance for The Current at St. Paul’s Fitzgerald Theater.
The live versions of the Double Negative songs are uniformly excellent — consider the booming strains of “Quorum,” the swirling storm of “Tempest,” and Mimi Parker’s haunting vocals on “Dancing and Blood” and “Fly” — and the band also performs material from older albums including 2015’s Ones and Sixes, 2013’s The Invisible Way, and 2005’s The Great Destroyer.
Setlist:
- “Quorum”
- “No Comprende”
- “Plastic Cup”
- “The Innocents”
- “Tempest”
- “Always Up”
- “Dancing and Blood”
- “Pissing”
- “Always Trying to Work It Out”
- “Poor Sucker”
- “Fly”
- “Spanish Translation”
- “Nothing but Heart”
- “Holy Ghost”
- “Lies”
- “Dancing and Fire”
- “Disarray”
- “When I Go Deaf”
Note: The original version of this video was missing several minutes of audio and had other technical issues. This is the updated version with the corrected audio.