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Lowly share poetic new visuals for ’12:36′- Sophomore album ‘Hifalutin’ out now on Bella Union

May 28, 2019

Lowly share poetic new visuals for ’12:36′- Sophomore album ‘Hifalutin’ out now on Bella Union

Last month saw Danish quintet Lowly release their brilliant sophomore album Hifalutin via Bella Union, a wildly impressive and intricate collection of 14 songs that have along their way caught the ear of many a fan, including Brian Eno. With an EU tour having just been wrapped up the band have today shared a black and white film to accompany their beautiful track ‘12:36‘. Directed by Martin Masai Andersen and shot over four weekends in London, the video documents Stefani and David, a homeless couple struggling with addiction.

Speaking of the video the band have shared the following statement…
Martin has created a documentary about two people finding comfort in each other. He has shown a stark and very honest look into a “day-in-the-life” of a drug addict with all the issues surrounding it, including sleeping rough and also being in a relationship.
He does it in a poetic and empathic way, not to manipulate or be sentimental about it, but just to show a real story. 

The meeting between our music and his visuals is pretty remarkable. To us the song embodies the collision between conflict and peace and identity, between the female and masculine, the fragile and soft against the hard. It’s a song about existing and being hyper sensitive about that very fact. 

Through Martin’s lens we get a view of Stefani and David’s life, but also their emotions and thoughts as well. 

We feel honored to be invited into all their worlds.”

A band unafraid to reach beyond their comfort zone, Lowly thrive on the embrace of doubt and curiosity. An inquisitive spirit drives the quintet’s second album, which evolved from an open-ended process in large spaces, from lost factory halls to water towers. Released via Bella Union in April, Hifalutin brims with suggestive discoveries from its title onwards. Dictionary definitions include “pompous” and “larger than life”; the word is also antonymic with the word Lowly. However you take it, the result is the work of five people expressing themselves freely as a tight collective: focused, yet fertile with possibility.

Fittingly, Hifalutin is an album of many entrance points. After the glistening come-hither to wandering minds of ‘Go for a Walk’, ‘Stephen’ reflects on death, inspired by the loss of Professor Stephen Hawking. The warm currents of ‘Baglaens’ (or “backwards”) contrast sharply with the buoyant beats cluster of ‘Staples’. ‘i’ resembles a hymnal Stina Nordenstam, constantly seeking new ways into a song, while the alt-R&B-ish ‘In the Hearts’ offers an unguarded paean to connectivity: as Lowly put it: “It’s about the magnificent power of love that transcends everything and connects us all.”

These diverse songs find hidden connections to each other through the chemistry between the sounds and Boll’s productions. And, of course, through the literate, abstract lyrics, which include references to works by experimental poet Inger Christensen and Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi. “Our lyrics consist of images and scenes that briefly glide into one’s field of view, and then disappear again,” co-lead singer Soffie Viemose explains. “We’d rather show something than say something quite literally.” An invitation sent from and to curious minds, Hifalutin is luminous modern pop at its most delicate and robust, assertive and open-ended.

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