Lowly share ‘Word’ video + announce UK/EU tour
With the release of their debut album Heba just over two months away on 10th February, hotly-tipped Danish quintet LOWLY have today shared a mesmerising video to current single “Word”. Directed by Noe Morre, the video piece for Word is a visual meditation over the lyrics of the song addressing the global issue of how we vocalise the debate about the humanitarian catastrophe that is the war in Syria and the resulting refugee crisis in Europe. Premiered earlier today on DORK you can now watch the video below…
Lowly have also just announced news of a 6-date UK in May to support the release of Heba. Dates/info below:
Friday 12th May – MANCHESTER – Gullivers tickets
Saturday 13th May – GLASGOW – Braodcast tickets
Sunday 14th May – MIDDLESBROUGH – Westgarth tickets
Monday 15th May – BIRMINGHAM – Hare & Hounds tickets
Tuesday 16th May – LONDON – The Victoria tickets
Wednesday 17th May – BRISTOL – The Louisiana tickets
Due for release in February on Bella Union, Heba is as uniquely sensual, rhythmic and mesmerising a brand of modern pop as you’ll hear in 2017: restlessly inventive, exquisitely melodic, and defying easy categorisation. The band describe their music as “noise-pop, and everything in between.” In this case, ‘noise’ refers to the textures and treatments that the quintet mould from synths, laptop and guitar, which give Lowly’s spacious songs unpredictable, shape-shifting qualities, iced by Nanna Schannong and Soffie Viemose’s radiant voices – all brilliantly layered by the band and co-producer Anders Boll, Efterklang’s long-trusted engineer/soundman.
Lowly first met at the musical academy in Aarhus, Denmark, with Staub alongside Schannong (lead vocals, guitar), Soffie Viemose (lead vocals, laptop), Thomas Lund (bass, Moog) and Steffen Lundtoft (drums, percussion). Despite all five studying different subjects, and having their own bands on the go, “and having very different tastes” (the only band they can agree on is Radiohead), they quickly found an enviable chemistry. “Though we were not trying hard, Lowly slowly took over,” Staub recalls. “It was just fun and felt so easy, and inspiring.”
Two independently released singles found their way outside of Denmark, inspiring the Guardian to include Lowly in a ‘Five must-listen new tracks from around the world’ round-up, while The Line Of Best Fit swooned to an “idyllic, height of summer sonic landscape… total bliss… Nordic pop does not get bigger.”
Having tracked the band for a year, it was after seeing Lowly play the Spot festival in Aarhus that Bella Union skipper Simon Raymonde signed the band, which made its label debut in 2015 with the Sink Way Into Me EP. But it was recent single ‘Deer Eyes’ that confirmed the giant leap forward that is Heba. “Lyrically, we start with abstract, but it can get personal too,” says Staub. The album title Heba is named after the band’s Syrian friend: “She moved to Denmark to live with her husband and to be safe from the war in Syria,” says Staub. “We are not a particularly political band, but we recorded the album while thousands of people were fleeing and getting killed. The frustration of Europe and our own country being unwilling to help, and bureaucracy being valued higher than human lives, affected us deeply. There are lyrics about that, but also your average love song, which Heba also is a symbol of.”
Lowly previously unveiled a mesmerising video to “Deer Eyes”, the first single from the album, which can be viewed HERE.
Heba will be released 10th February via Bella Union. Album artwork below:
