Alan Sparhawk - With Trampled by Turtles - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Less than a year since his uncompromising alternative pop solo album, InchWhite Roses, My GodInch, Alan Sparhawk - co-founder of the seminal slowcore band Low - returns with another full studio album. This collaborative project brings together Sparhawk's introspective songwriting with the dynamic instrumentation of fellow Minnesotans Trampled by Turtles, resulting in a collection that is both intimate and expansive. The album was recorded in late 2023 at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, a site known for it's rich musical history. Sparhawk joined Trampled by Turtles during their studio sessions, bringing with him a selection of songs that had been gestating over the years-some previously unrecorded with Low, others newly conceived.

Mozart's works for piano for four hands were written mostly to use for private playing with his sister Nannerl or gifted students. They focus on the fun and joy of playing, which is expressed, for example, in witty musical jokes. Patrick Ayrton and Wolfgang Glüxam ensure that the irrepressible joy of making music is also present on this recording. The English harpsichordist, Patrick Ayrton, has always had a passion for keyboard instruments, first the piano, then the organ and the harpsichord. He started his musical studies in Switzerland with Francois Demierre. He then studied the organ and church music with Alfred Mitterhofer at the Academy of Music and Figurative Arts in Vienna where he graduated Inchcum laudeInch. The Austrian harpsichordist, Wolfgang Glüxam, studied organ playing with Alfred Mitterhofer at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, as well as harpsichord with Ton Koopman at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. 1979 and 1980 he was winner at the international competitions in Brugge/Belgium and Nijmegen/Holland.

Alan Sparhawk has always been a prolific, protean musician. A restless soul eager to explore unfamiliar sonic and psychic terrain. Though he's obviously (and justifiably) best-known for his thirty years as frontman of the legendary band Low, a look at Sparhawk's many side projects across that same span of time shows him experimenting with everything from punk and funk to production work and improvisation. Low itself never settled for a set sound or approach. The band was always a collaboration-a conversation, a romance-between Sparhawk and his wife, Mimi Parker, who was the band's co-founder, drummer, co-lead vocalist, and it's blazing irreplaceable heart. To take the journey from Low's hushed early work, through the tremendous melodies of their middle period, all the way to the late rich chaos of their final albums, is to witness heads, hearts, and spirits in an act of perpetual becoming.Parker passed away in 2022 after a long battle with cancer, and there is no question that WHITE ROSES, MY GOD is a record borne of grief. You can hear it in the title, as well as tracks such as InchHeavenInch, in which Sparhawk describes the afterlife, wrenchingly, as Incha lonely place if you're alone.Inch You can sense it too in Sparhawk's decision to create this thing entirely on his own every note, every lyric, every programmed beat. It would be reductive, even foolish, to see grief as the sole source or the final limit of this taut, brilliant, provocative, thrilling album, whose bold experimentation is powered by profound lyrics and propulsive beats. InchCan you feel something here?Inch Sparhawk asks on InchFeel Something.Inch The line repeats over and over, evolving first into InchI want to feel something hereInch and then InchCan you help me feel something here?Inch Meanwhile the musical means he's chosen to convey this message-especially the pitch-shifter-might seem at first