Low (45th Anniversary) [Orange Vinyl]

Celebrate the 45th Anniversary of David Bowie's landmark Low album with this limited orange vinyl edition. First released by RCA Records on Friday, January 14 1977, Low was Bowie’s 11th studio album. The album’s working title was New Music: Night And Day, but saw a last minute name change to the visually punning Low. It was Bowie’s first exploration into the electronic and ambient music realms.

The album was recorded following Bowie's move to West Berlin after a period of drug addiction and personal instability, Low became the first of three collaborations with producers Brian Eno and Tony Visconti, later termed the Berlin Trilogy.

Following through with the avant-garde inclinations of Station to Station, yet explicitly breaking with David Bowie's past, Low is a dense, challenging album that confirmed his place at rock's cutting edge. The record is defiantly experimental and dense with detail, providing a new direction for the avant-garde in rock & roll.

Driven by dissonant synthesizers and electronics, Low is divided between brief, angular songs and atmospheric instrumentals. Throughout the record's first half, the guitars are jagged and the synthesizers drone with a menacing robotic pulse, while Bowie's vocals are unnaturally layered and overdubbed.

During the instrumental half, the electronics turn cool, which is a relief after the intensity of the preceding avant pop. Half the credit for Low's success goes to Brian Eno, who explored similar ambient territory on his own releases. Eno functioned as a conduit for Bowie's ideas, and in turn Bowie made the experimentalism of not only Eno but of the German synth group Kraftwerk and the post-punk group Wire respectable, if not quite mainstream.

Exclusive ORANGE vinyl produced by Parlophone Records in 2022 in celebration of the album's 45th Anniversary.