RG Lowe
Shares ‘Sendai, Unknown’
New Album: ‘Life of the Body’ – May 22, 2020
Out via Western Vinyl
When he co-founded the instrumental band Balmorhea over 10 years ago, Rob Lowe (RG Lowe) had no idea that its introspective instrumental music would be heard by millions of people, or that it would offer the opportunity to travel and perform around the world.
After years of success in the world of neo-classical music, Lowe took a sharp turn when a casual conversation with a friend in Marfa, TX planted the idea in his head that he should challenge himself to write a pop album. Having spent years in church choirs and musical theater as a kid in West Texas, he knew he could sing, but would have to teach himself how to write the type of pop songs he was interested in creating.
This eventually manifested in his 2017 debut, Slow Time, which Stereogum called “impossibly smooth.” Three years later, Lowe is returning with his sophomore album, Life of the Body.
Rob says: This song intermingles historical and personal events of March 11th, 2011 as a metaphor for the distances between people. The Tōhoku earthquake of the coast of Japan near the city of Sendai was the 4th most powerful ever recorded; literally moving the planet of its axis and increasing its rotational speed. The Tsunami from the event reined havoc on Japan killing thousands and causing the meltdown of three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The following morning I was with a friend in Portland Oregon waiting as the waves from the Tsunami would hit the Pacific Coast of the United States, but they came in as little more than a set of small ripples. Looking back on this event from almost a decade ago I was struck with its illustrative significance for myself and my life.
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