Retribution Gospel Choir: Low's Alan Sparhawk rediscovers the joy of volume, volume, volume
With his long-running trio Low, singer-guitarist Alan Sparhawk explores the possibilities of playing as quietly and deliberately as possible. Over two decades, Low has made some of the most gorgeous music of its time, with a premium placed on space, silence and hymn-like melodies.
Now comes Retribution Gospel Choir, another trio that includes drummer Eric Pollard and Low bassist Scott Garrington. It would be easy to characterize the band as the anti-Low with its love of volume and distortion, a reaction against what Sparhawk does in his other band. But as is usually the case with the guitarist, it’s not quite that simple.
“I can see where it could be perceived as a release from what Low would allow,” Sparhawk says. “But it’s not that. It’s more like the people I’m playing with."
“With Low, for sure, it’s very much Mimi and I,” he adds, referring to his wife, Mimi Parker, who is Low’s other singer and percussionist. “She’s very much the tone and the spirit of that band. As much as it may sound confining, she is the rulebook, she is the tone that I am aspiring to when making music in Low.”
Now comes Retribution Gospel Choir, another trio that includes drummer Eric Pollard and Low bassist Scott Garrington. It would be easy to characterize the band as the anti-Low with its love of volume and distortion, a reaction against what Sparhawk does in his other band. But as is usually the case with the guitarist, it’s not quite that simple.
“I can see where it could be perceived as a release from what Low would allow,” Sparhawk says. “But it’s not that. It’s more like the people I’m playing with."
“With Low, for sure, it’s very much Mimi and I,” he adds, referring to his wife, Mimi Parker, who is Low’s other singer and percussionist. “She’s very much the tone and the spirit of that band. As much as it may sound confining, she is the rulebook, she is the tone that I am aspiring to when making music in Low.”
With Retribution Gospel Choir, which just released its second album, “2” (Sub Pop), Sparhawk brought out his latent guitar-hero tendencies. It started out as a collaboration between Sparhawk and Mark Kozelek of the Red House Painters. The mutual admirers wanted to tour together a few years ago, but weren’t interested in playing separate solo sets. So they formed an ad hoc band.
“We played a few shows and found a sound we were both excited about, something we really hadn’t done a lot of on our own,” Sparhawk says. “There was something intriguing for both of us playing that loud.”
Kozelek ended up producing the first Retribution Gospel Choir album, a self-titled 2008 release, and then drifted out of the picture, leaving Sparhawk to carry on.
“Doing that tour with Mark and then the album opened up another side of my playing,” Sparhawk says. “I thought Eddie Van Halen was the bomb when I was kid, but as a young guitar player, it was an overwhelming feeling to hear someone like that and realize that I could never play that way. When you’re 14, you’re grappling with everything colliding at the same time, and to a degree that struggle is still in me. So to play the guitar very loudly satisfies some weird thing in me. It’s physically impacting. You’re holding this thing and it’s vibrating, and the air is vibrating around you and your body is vibrating. After years of struggling hard to make quiet sound as large as possible, there’s something fluid when the music’s loud and you don’t have to fight anymore. What’s weird is the louder you play, subtle things happen and there are other things you can engage with in the music. I’m essentially playing guitar the same way I do in Low, but there is a different dynamic and different tones and overtones to play with.”
With “2,” Retribution Gospel Choir builds on the self-discovery of the first album with a bolder set of colors and dynamics. The trio knocked out the basic tracks in less than a week in its home base of Duluth, Minn., and then enlisted a longtime friend of Sparhawk’s, Matt Beckley, to mix. Beckley, the son of America’s Gerry Beckley, has collaborated with a number of pop performers, including Avril Lavigne and Katy Perry.
“I met him 12 years ago, played music with him, shared his sense of humor and taste. It was only later that I realized that he could mix the [expletive] out of people’s records,” Sparhawk says. “I wanted him to push what we were doing beyond the expected. I cited Daisy Chainsaw’s ‘Eleventeen’ album and the Blood Brothers as records that jumped out, that had the intensity I was going for. I didn’t want to limit ourselves to any tradition. I loved ‘Led Zeppelin 2’ but it’s 2010, we need to push the elements a little more.”
Beckley sharpened the teeth in the arrangements, and Sparhawk says he’s thrilled with the outcome. The album’s approach can be summed in the eight-minute song “Electric Guitar,” which has led some listeners to suggest that the heavier attack is partially tongue-in-cheek.
“People who say that are accusing me of being a liar, and I am not,” Sparhawk says. “I am trying to write some good songs. I don’t act, man. Playing a show is too sacred. I’m as serious as Dave Mustaine about something heavy. If anything, I’m scrambling like hell to keep up and make something that will last.”
greg@gregkot.com
Retribution Gospel Choir: 10 p.m. Friday at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $10; ticketweb.com.
“We played a few shows and found a sound we were both excited about, something we really hadn’t done a lot of on our own,” Sparhawk says. “There was something intriguing for both of us playing that loud.”
Kozelek ended up producing the first Retribution Gospel Choir album, a self-titled 2008 release, and then drifted out of the picture, leaving Sparhawk to carry on.
“Doing that tour with Mark and then the album opened up another side of my playing,” Sparhawk says. “I thought Eddie Van Halen was the bomb when I was kid, but as a young guitar player, it was an overwhelming feeling to hear someone like that and realize that I could never play that way. When you’re 14, you’re grappling with everything colliding at the same time, and to a degree that struggle is still in me. So to play the guitar very loudly satisfies some weird thing in me. It’s physically impacting. You’re holding this thing and it’s vibrating, and the air is vibrating around you and your body is vibrating. After years of struggling hard to make quiet sound as large as possible, there’s something fluid when the music’s loud and you don’t have to fight anymore. What’s weird is the louder you play, subtle things happen and there are other things you can engage with in the music. I’m essentially playing guitar the same way I do in Low, but there is a different dynamic and different tones and overtones to play with.”
With “2,” Retribution Gospel Choir builds on the self-discovery of the first album with a bolder set of colors and dynamics. The trio knocked out the basic tracks in less than a week in its home base of Duluth, Minn., and then enlisted a longtime friend of Sparhawk’s, Matt Beckley, to mix. Beckley, the son of America’s Gerry Beckley, has collaborated with a number of pop performers, including Avril Lavigne and Katy Perry.
“I met him 12 years ago, played music with him, shared his sense of humor and taste. It was only later that I realized that he could mix the [expletive] out of people’s records,” Sparhawk says. “I wanted him to push what we were doing beyond the expected. I cited Daisy Chainsaw’s ‘Eleventeen’ album and the Blood Brothers as records that jumped out, that had the intensity I was going for. I didn’t want to limit ourselves to any tradition. I loved ‘Led Zeppelin 2’ but it’s 2010, we need to push the elements a little more.”
Beckley sharpened the teeth in the arrangements, and Sparhawk says he’s thrilled with the outcome. The album’s approach can be summed in the eight-minute song “Electric Guitar,” which has led some listeners to suggest that the heavier attack is partially tongue-in-cheek.
“People who say that are accusing me of being a liar, and I am not,” Sparhawk says. “I am trying to write some good songs. I don’t act, man. Playing a show is too sacred. I’m as serious as Dave Mustaine about something heavy. If anything, I’m scrambling like hell to keep up and make something that will last.”
greg@gregkot.com
Retribution Gospel Choir: 10 p.m. Friday at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $10; ticketweb.com.
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