Not even a month ago Low They canceled their European tour and their concerts scheduled for this week in Spain for health reasons, but nobody expected such a quick and fatal outcome. “Friends, it is difficult to put the universe in words and in a short message, but She died last night, surrounded by family and love, including yours, ”could be read this Sunday in a message shared on the social networks of the American band.
She, it was not necessary to specify, is Mimi Parker, drummer for the Duluth band that transformed indie into a cathedral of spirituality, experimentation and raw emotions. “Keep his name close and sacred. Share this moment with someone who needs you. Love is indeed the most important thing,” the statement added. Parker, born in 1967, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2020.
Friends, it’s hard to put the universe into language and into a short message, but
She passed away last night, surrounded by family and love, including yours. Keep her name close and sacred. Share this moment with someone who needs you. Love is indeed the most important thing.
— LOW (@lowtheband) November 6, 2022
His voice was the chill that ran through the second line of Low’s songs and his hands shaped the band’s rhythmic shell for years. Minimalism, spiritual beauty and traces of slowcore increasingly diluted in a rapturous personality. For almost three decades, Low achieved something as unheard of as signing a discography without blemish or almost false steps; a career in which each album was a little better than the previous one to the point that his last work, ‘HEY WHAT’was unanimously celebrated as one of the best of 2021. Also in this house, where ABC critics chose it as the best international album of its year.
indie anomaly
Born in a small town outside of Bemidji, Minnesota, Parker formed Low with her husband. Alan Sparhawk, whom he had known in elementary school and with whom he developed a frankly amazing career. Sitting at the drums always between Sparhwak and any of the bassists who have rotated through a square that was finally definitively deserted in 2020, Parker was the rhythmic heart of one of the most unusual and exciting bands to emerge in the heat of American indie.
A band formed by a marriage of practicing mormons who, without ever giving up his singularity, released a long dozen albums with hardly any repetition and tracing an unrepeatable narrative arc that, among other possible readings, ranges from rock with morphine and drip of ‘I Could Live In Hope’ to cubist electronic music from ‘Double Negative’ and ‘HEY WHAT’ through the disfigured carols of ‘Christmas’.
A dazzling and daring band that there is no choice but to refer to in the past, since it will hardly be able to continue existing as it has up to now.