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Low

Short rock fragments on one side, ambient instrumentals on the other: the first of the Berlin albums.
David Bowie, 1977

Released
14 January 1977
Recorded
September to October 1976
Studio
Chateau d'Herouville, France, and Hansa Studios, West Berlin
Label
RCA
Producer
David Bowie, Tony Visconti
Length
38:26

The label resisted the record, and its release slipped from November 1976. Visconti put an Eventide H910 Harmonizer on the drums. At a talk at the Brooklyn Museum he described the split between rock songs and ambient pieces, and said Bowie's mood during a lawsuit from a former manager inspired the title. Brian Eno played synthesizers, and Warszawa was written by Bowie and Eno.

The album reached number two in the UK and number eleven in the US, and Sound and Vision reached number three in the UK. At release Charles Shaar Murray of the NME called it an act of purest hatred and destructiveness, while the NME's Ian MacDonald found it stunningly beautiful. Michael Watts of Melody Maker called it the music of Now. Pitchfork's Laura Snapes later gave it ten out of ten.

Track listing

  1. Speed of Life2:46
  2. Breaking Glass1:51
  3. What in the World2:23
  4. Sound and Vision3:03
  5. Always Crashing in the Same Car3:29
  6. Be My Wife2:55
  7. A New Career in a New Town2:51
  8. Warszawa6:20
  9. Art Decade3:43
  10. Weeping Wall3:26
  11. Subterraneans5:39

Personnel

More from David Bowie

Space Oddity (1969), Hunky Dory (1971), The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), Aladdin Sane (1973), Diamond Dogs (1974), Young Americans (1975), Station to Station (1976), "Heroes" (1977), Lodger (1979), Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980), Let's Dance (1983), Heathen (2002), The Next Day (2013), Blackstar (2016)

Sources

  1. Low (David Bowie album), Wikipedia
  2. Producing David Bowie's landmark Berlin trilogy, Mix (2018-04-06)