Low [Enhanced] [Original recording reissued]

the album is basically spilt into two halves (side one and two, if it were vinyl); the first half consists of tracks with vocals. these are all three-minute blasts of germanic pop perfection, with interestingly textured, melodic arrangements that camouflage the often bleak and dark lyrics- but i'll come back to that later. iggy pops up (no pun intended) on vocals for 'what in the world'. the classic 'sound and vision' is here as well, with it's great guitar hook. while listening to this album, it really struck me that bowie's backing band are really quite good, especially carlos alomar on the guitar. the short, punchy and strangely desperate 'breaking glass' is great as well. side one is book-ended by two bouncy, poppy instrumentals with great hooks and melodies, 'speed of life' and 'a new career in a new town'.

side two is the instrumental side, consisting of four tracks that run together for about twenty minutes as one gloomy, bleak and incredibly atmospheric suite of music: 'warszawa' (and no, i don't know how to say it either), 'art decade', 'weeping wall' and 'subterraneans'. the sound reminds me of german electro-wizards kraftwerk. when i read in a review that half of 'low' was instrumental, i was a bit put off, thinking i'd be bored after about three minutes. but the amazing thing is, there's never a dull second here.

i'd just like to have a brief moan about something, though; brian eno was probably responsible for the majority of 'low', and definitely responsible for the entire second side, yet david bowie manages to fob him off: read the booklet- 'all songs by david bowie'. not very fair. eno must feel a bit cheated. that's the only thing i don't like about bowie; he picks some great sidemen (robert fripp, eno, mick ronson, etc) who obviously have major songwriting input, then hardly gives 'em any credit.

getting back to the lyrics, 'low' contains some of bowie's most personal thoughts and feelings, generated by his state of mind at the time: cocaine was ruining him, and he'd just split from his wife, angie. the reason why I didn't mention 'always crashing in the same car' and 'be my wife' from side one earlier is because even though the arrangements are very good and really suit the mood, it's the lyrics that really hit hard. even the titles seem desperate and dead-end- 'always crashing in the same car'. the first two lines of 'be my wife' are "sometimes you get so lonely/ sometimes you get nowhere".

thanks to wondrous 21st century technology, 'low' has been digitally remastered and three previously unreleased bonus tracks from that period have been added. 'some are' is pretty unremarkable, I think, but the creepy, churning instrumental track 'all saints' fits in perfectly and carries on the atmosphere of the whole album very well. there's a new, longer version of 'sound and vision', remixed especially for the cd re-release that's every bit as good as the original.

i can't compare 'low' to any of bowie's other works- this is my first bowie cd- but i am told by the more informed that it ranks as one of his best. certainly, as a stand-alone album, it's very, very good. it really does capture the gloomy, bleak, morbid decadedence of a post-war berlin and is very atmospheric. i'd recommend it to bowie virgins and veterans alike, as well as anyone into early kraftwerk, can or sixties/seventies kraut-rock. if you liked iggy's 'the idiot' (and if you didn't, you should do!), which i mentioned right at the start of this review, 'low' is a good buy. and that works vice-versa.

overall, one of the most scary, dark, atmospheric and bleak records to come out of the seventies. well done bowie AND eno AND the backing band! five stars *****.

I had certain reservations when I heard Low for the first time. It has no predecessor in his catalogue - even Station To Station with its ice-cold lyrics seems tame.

However, subsequent listenings gave me the chance to re-assess my criticisms and praise. To wit: This is a wonderful album. That is the conclusion - the rest of this review is just filler to make you buy this perfect capture of the late 1970s and latter-era Bowie (latter as in before he went average and normal - the '80s period).

All of the first 'side' (CDs don't allow the luxury/relief/averageness of such limitations) is classic, an aural joy (even if the subject matter - Be My Wife, Always Crashing In The Same Car etc. sounds like it isn't). It promotes Bowie at his most pure, un-diluted and resonant. The second side DOES sound like filler the first time you hear it, but subsequent listenings reveal much of Bowie, producer Tony Visconti and 'sound engineer' Brian Eno at their height. It reminds me of the late seventies - and gives the listener a direct soundline from Kraftwerk to Joy Division - certain praise.

Low is an amazing album - not for the glam-rock that characterised Bowie's early albums or the later radio-friendly dirge (comparatively) - but for the amazing aural dynamics that the listener is treated to. At heart, it is an intelligent album. David treats the listener with respect.

Buy this, and, in time, love this. A discerning listener would demand nothing less.

Bowie & Eno employed those oblique strategies, taking the approach the latter had employed as a solo artist and collaborating with Cluster & Harmonia. Bowie himself was enamoured with all things Kraut, attempting to get members of Neu! involved (he was turned down) and nodding to other key West German acts like Can, Faust & Kraftwerk (whose 'Trans Europe Express' namechecked Bowie & Pop). Having said that, such key Bowie-associated musicians as Carlos Alomar, Dennis Davis, George Murray, Ricky'The Passenger'Gardener & Roy Young also contribute. It seems like the tight alien plastic soul collective are there to nail Bowie & Eno's avant-directions to the wall.(I'm sure Hugo Wilcken's 331/3 book on 'Low' will be of interest...)

'Low' was reported to have been initially rejected by RCA, while Bowie's initial plan to blend the vocal/intrumental tracks more was nixed- the first half ('Speed of Life' apart) finds vocal-songs, as the latter half showcases the instrumental side of things. A performance of 'Low' alongside 'Heathen' a few years ago appeared to put 'Low' back in the order Bowie originally intended (...any chance of a release Dave?).

'Speed of Life' is a pulsing instrumental that sets the tone for the album, leading into the classic 'Breaking Glass' co-written with Davis & Murray - certainly the missing link between Can & Chic! Eno's cortex-melting waves of synths are perfect colliding with the funk as Bowie looks back with horror at his time in LA as he embraced the Occult:"...don't look at the carpet/I drew something awful on it/See..." 'What in the World' speeds things up, a rapid pop song with Iggy on backing vocals - the "Deep in your room, so deep in your room" feeling akin to the sybaritic "Blue, blue electric blue/That's the colour of my room" of 'Sound+Vision' - Bowie a bit lost in the scheme of things (...the turning point could be 1979's 'Fantastic Voyage'?).'Sound And Vision' is an absolute joy, as ever, benefiting from Eno and Mary Hopkin's (Mrs Visconti) backing vocals and one of Bowie's perfect popsongs.

The first half becomes darkest with 'Always Crashing in the Same Car', which has the feel of J.G. Ballard's 'Crash', sort of plastic soul after 'Autobahn' - setting the tone for such later joys as 'Pull Up to the Bumper', 'Warm Leatherette', 'Cars', 'Little Red Corvette' & 'The Art of Driving.' As with material on 'Young Americans' & 'Station...' Bowie is dripping with soul and passion here, the "Jasmine..." line and the aching guitar of Alomar is one of the great moments in the Thin White One's canon. The vocal-section concludes with the charming 'Be My Wife', the predecessor of 'Heathen's 'I Would Be Your Slave' and the place where Bowie trys out his Mockney vocals (contrast to uber 80s hit 'Modern Love' & its opening vocal). The "sometimes you get so lonely..." line seems to encapsulate the album - as bleak as it is, Bowie isn't wallowing and is kind of looking for a way out - more an 'On the Beach' than a 'Berlin'...

While some may gripe that Bowie wasn't doing what more cult European acts were, the second side disproves that notion. Bowie may have been influenced by European acts, but he took that Euro-electronic thing somewhere entirely new. The five instrumentals that conclude 'Low' stand up as a key moment in the history of electronica, setting the tone for the years that followed. Their influence can be found in New Order-Joy Division (whose name post Stiff Kittens was Warsaw after the track here), Ultravox!, Tubeway Army, Japan ('Burning Bridges'), Y.M.O., Throbbing Gristle (the instrumentals on '20 Jazz Funk Greats' a definite relative), Associates, B.E.F., Visage, Magazine (Dave Formula's keyboard work on 'Secondhand Daylight' definitely!), Simple Minds ('Empires & Dance'), the Eno/Talking Heads collaborations (notably 'Fear of Music'), Cabaret Voltaire ('Voice of America/Three Mantras' advanced on these climes), Spandau Ballet, 'Kid A'-Radiohead, Vangelis ('Blade Runner'), Soft Cell (Mr Almond nodded to it a few years ago), Devo, Depeche Mode, Suede's 'Introducing the Band', Blur ('He Thought of Cars', 'Yuki & Hiro','13'), Moby, John Foxx, Nine Inch Nails, Madonna, Fennesz, Sylvian/Czukay, Simian, Sakamoto, Pete Shelley's 80's solo albums, Yello, Leftfield, PIL's 'Radio 4' etc etc. 'Warszawa' is also familiar as alongside German single 'Helden' and tracks from "Heroes" & 'Lodger' it appeared on the soundtrack to the bleak 'Christiane F- We the Children from Zoo Station' (some of these instrumentals have a parallel existence on the excellent instrumental only compilation 'All Saints'). & a major tribute to 'Low' not mentioned thus far is Philip Glass' 'Low Symphony', one of the great cover versions and proof that pop-music (...if this is what pop music is...) can belong in the classical world if required...

'Low' is a key album.