Mimi Parker: Indie Rock’s Guardian Angel

Nina Corcoran at Pitchfork:

Low never had a hit single, or even a definitive track. Over nearly three decades and 13 albums, the Duluth, Minnesota band wrote hundreds of songs, more than a dozen of which are probably considered the song, depending on whom you ask. But ask a fan if they remember the first time they heard a Low song, and they would likely recall the exact moment in vivid detail. For others, they might recall when Low’s music stirred their father out of a dementia-fueled silence or transformed into a last-ditch lifeline when living seemed futile. Whenever the husband-and-wife team of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker flicked on the recorder, the otherworldly power of their minimalist indie rock was captured for future generations to fall under its spell, instilling an appreciation of being alive—however kind or brutal existence may be. Their lack of commercial success, which Parker once claimed “saved our asses,” made space for experimentation and pushed Low to constantly evolve, from the whispered slowcore of 1994’s I Could Live in Hope to the aggressive electronics of 2021’s Hey What.

more here.