Culture
The Low Anthem Play the Stuart’s Grand Lobby March 24
< < Back toStuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio presents an evening of music with The Low Anthem in our brand new Grand Lobby on Saturday, March 24 at 8 p.m. At some point, Ben Knox Miller and Jeff Prystowsky were born to the human family, grew up to love music, and as atomic randomness dictates, found each other turning two on the baseball diamond. They started a band in 2006 called The Low Anthem, and over ten years of making music together, have developed a distinctive sound, and grown a beautiful friendship. Since then they have released several acclaimed albums and toured all over gaining new fans along the way. Their newest release The Salt Doll Went to Measure the Depth of the Sea came out this past February 23. The Ophelias from Cincinnati will open the show.
“One second you’re dozing off in the passenger seat on the way to a gig, and the next, there’s fire and hell flames and black smoke and your face is bleeding and you can’t see, and you can’t process information, and you think it’s all over.” Jeff Prystowsky is describing one of the scariest moments in his life, as The Low Anthem’s tour van crashed and subsequently wiped out Prystowsky for several weeks, as well as wrecking loads of their gear and instruments in the process. However, the accident also acted as an inadvertent impetus for their latest record whilst Prystowsky was in recovery: a John Cage-influenced concept record. A beautiful, elegiac and largely acoustic – though peppered with subtle yet immersive electronics and humming ambience – album of twelve tracks that barely stretch past the two-minute mark. Recalling the more progressive moments of artists such as Sufjan Stevens and Lambchop, it’s a record of a deep richness, loaded with extreme subtleties and with a space and delicacy counter to the group’s previous dense and complex album.
The album feels like a new palate for the group and comes at the end of a period of profound change and evolution. Not only did the van crash cancel their tour (after just four dates) but, combined with some record company troubles, it led to the album they were due to tour all but disappearing. Eyeland was the group’s deeply experimental 2016 album, one that was their first in several years and one that was also a direct response to a world in which they had found themselves but didn’t really want to be. Prystowsky formed the band with Ben Knox Miller and after the huge success of their 2007 debut album, What The Crow Brings, the band found themselves signed to Nonesuch and Bella Union for their even more successful follow-up Oh My God, Charlie Darwin. They toured the world and were reluctantly lumped in with the so-called “folk revival”. However, night-after-night of performing their early material was not ultimately where they wanted to land. “The moment was losing its mystery. We were scared of becoming robots,” the band said after six years of reflection.
Five years on since moving back to Providence, building a recording studio then recording a deeply experimental, stylistic u-turn of a record in Eyeland before having to ditch the whole thing after a near miss accident, the band are now finally into a groove of their own, under their own terms. They are settled and have found themselves again both in terms of a sense of place as well as musically. This feeling of comfort, confidence and newfound identity shines through on The Salt Doll Went To Measure The Depth Of The Sea, an album that was triggered when Knox Miller was reading John Cage’s biography Where The Heart Beats, by Kay Larsen. It finds the Low Anthem of 2017 a vastly different band from the one that emerged 10 years ago with their debut. One that has experienced more ups and downs that many would manage in an entire career but also one that now feels settled in their skin and only interested in venturing toward the horizon instead of re-treading old ground.
The Ophelias are an all girl art rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio and will open the show.
Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio hosts The Low Anthem for an evening of music in our new Grand Lobby on Saturday, March 24th at 8:00pm, doors will open at 6:00pm, come enjoy a drink before the show! The Ophelias will open the show. For tickets and more information call (740) 753-1924 or visit our website at www.stuartsoperahouse.org.