Low - Ones And Sixes (2LP)

Low’s music has always felt like winter light off Lake Superior, soft but unblinking. By the time Ones and Sixes arrived in 2015, the Duluth trio had been refining that sensibility for decades, yet this record finds them opening windows and letting in a strange electrical crackle. Made at Justin Vernon’s April Base in Eau Claire with producer and engineer BJ Burton, it keeps the band’s space and patience, then smudges the edges with static, haunted synths and clipped beats. It is the sound of a group trusting their core and still nudging it into new weather.

You hear it straight away in No Comprende, the slow-burner that introduced the album. Alan Sparhawk leans into that circular guitar figure, Mimi Parker answers with a steady pulse that never hurries, and the whole track feels like breath held in a cold room. The tension is the hook. What Part of Me offers the flip, a deceptively bright pop shape where Parker and Sparhawk trade lines like a couple hashing out the terms of care. Low have always found drama in restraint, but here the restraint is wired to a current that buzzes under the floorboards.

A lot of that comes down to April Base and Burton. The studio’s wood and air are audible, room tone and hiss left in place, while the production toys with distortion and digital artefacts without swallowing the songs. You get sub-bass that creeps rather than thumps, percussion that splinters then snaps back into focus, little synth ghosts that hover at the edge of hearing. It stops short of the full deconstruction that would define Double Negative a few years later, but you can feel that road being mapped. Ones and Sixes is the bridge where the band proves they can invite new textures and still keep a clear silhouette.

Parker’s voice is the emotional anchor throughout. Her harmonies stack like frost on glass, and her drumming, often with mallets, sets a heartbeat that is human rather than mechanical. Sparhawk’s guitar work is all economy, every scrape and bloom earning its keep. Steve Garrington, on bass and keys, adds the sinew that lets the songs stretch and breathe. Lyrically, the record circles faith, doubt, and the day-to-day negotiations of love. Not sermonising, just lived detail from people who know the weight of small promises.

Critics heard the shift and leaned in. The album drew strong notices from Pitchfork and The Guardian, and NPR spent time with it in the lead-up to release, picking up on its quiet audacity. Long-time fans treated it as a late-period standout, while newcomers found a doorway that was welcoming but still weird. It is not a flighty pivot, more a calm widening of the frame, and it holds up because the songs carry the load.

Spin it on wax if you can. Ones and Sixes vinyl gives those low frequencies room to bloom, and the little seams in the mixes feel more tactile, like you can touch the grain. Low vinyl has a way of rewarding quiet rooms and good speakers, and this one is no exception. If you are browsing a Melbourne record store and spot a tidy copy, it is an easy recommendation, though you can also buy Low records online if the local bins are picked over. For collectors who track Low albums on vinyl, this sits nicely beside C’mon on one shelf and Double Negative on the other, a hinge piece that makes both sides make more sense. And if you are hunting from afar, plenty of shops shipping vinyl records Australia wide will keep it in rotation.

What sticks after many plays is the steadiness. Low refuse maximalism, but they also refuse stasis. Ones and Sixes shows how far you can go with patience and a small set of tools, especially in a room that lets the air speak and a producer willing to keep the rough edges intact. The album is weather-beaten, kind, and quietly radical, a record that deepens each time you sit with it and let the lights dim.