Low is an American indie rock group from Duluth, Minnesota. The group was formed in 1993, by Alan Sparhawk (guitar and vocals), Mimi Parker (drums and vocals) and original bassist John Nichols (bass guitar). Zak Sally replaced Nichols after Low's first album and tour. In 2005, Sally quit the band; Matt Livingston replaced him shortly thereafter. Livingston has since left the band and has been replaced by Steve Garrington, creating the current lineup of Sparhawk, Parker and Garrington.
Their music is commonly described as "slowcore," a subgenre characterised by slow tempos and minimalist arrangements. They are one of the earlier bands to adopt and popularize the style, making them considerable contributors to the slowcore movement. (It is worth noting that the band dislike this tag. In an blank">interview Alan Sparhawk says of descriptions of their music: "What's the cheesiest? Slow-core. I hate that word. The most appropriate is anything that uses the word minimal in it, but I don't think anybody's made one up for that." In another interview, Sparhawk claimed that a friend of his coined the term: "this friend of ours in a record store was always joking around...and he said, 'I got it! You should call it "slowcore"!'...It was a total joke, and I think I mentioned it at one of our interviews." ) Parker and Sparhawk's striking vocal harmonies represent perhaps the group's most distinctive element; critic Denise Sullivan writes that their shared vocals are "as chilling as anything _Gram and Emmylou ever conspired on -- though that's not to say it's country-tinged, just straight from the heart."
