{"id":13477,"date":"2013-11-20T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riffsandbeats.com\/?p=13477"},"modified":"2026-11-09T07:07:47","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T06:07:47","slug":"low-david-bowie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riffsandbeats.com\/fr\/chroniques\/albums-fr\/low-david-bowie\/","title":{"rendered":"Low – Berlin fragments after Station to Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

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First Berlin fragment, Visconti and Eno<\/h3>\n

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In January 1977 RCA released Low<\/em>, the first Berlin-trilogy album, cut with Tony Visconti and Brian Eno after the Station to Station<\/em> tour exhaustion. Basic tracks started at the Ch\u00e2teau d’H\u00e9rouville in France; work continued in West Berlin at Hansa. The split is audible on the finished LP: side one is short songs, side two is mostly instrumentals. Carlos Alomar, George Murray, and Dennis Davis remain the rhythm core while Eno opens empty space with treatments and synths.<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Speed of Life\u00a0\u00bb opens as an instrumental with a bright synth line before any vocal arrives. \u00ab\u00a0Breaking Glass,\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0What in the World,\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0Sound and Vision,\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0Always Crashing in the Same Car,\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0Be My Wife\u00a0\u00bb keep vocals sparse and mixes dry. \u00ab\u00a0Sound and Vision\u00a0\u00bb places Mary Visconti’s backing vocal and Roy Young’s piano in a wide stereo field while Bowie’s lead arrives late, a structural joke that became a hit. \u00ab\u00a0Be My Wife\u00a0\u00bb is the plainest plea on the record, later filmed by Stanley Dorfman against a white backdrop with a red Strat as prop.<\/p>\n

Side two shifts gear. \u00ab\u00a0A New Career in a New Town,\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0Warszawa,\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0Art Decade,\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0Weeping Wall,\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0Subterraneans\u00a0\u00bb use Eno’s treatments, wordless vocals, and synthesizer beds. \u00ab\u00a0Warszawa\u00a0\u00bb grew from a Visconti melody sketched after travel toward the atmosphere of the Polish capital; it became a live instrumental centrepiece on later tours. The cover still used a still from The Man Who Fell to Earth<\/em>, tying the new music to the alien image while the insides rejected glam costume drama.<\/p>\n

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There’s new wave, there’s electronic, there’s ambient. Low sits under a lot of that vocabulary.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Tony Visconti on Low’s afterlife)<\/em><\/p>\n

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RCA worried about the instrumental half and the short song lengths. UK sales still pushed the album into the Top 5; \u00ab\u00a0Sound and Vision\u00a0\u00bb became a hit single and a BBC theme for a stretch. Punk and post-punk listeners treated the dry drums and synths as a usable template, Joy Division took that sound on. Later electronic acts cite the Berlin records as records they worked from when they made their own.<\/p>\n

Low<\/em> is the reset. Bowie leaves the Thin White Duke theatre, keeps a rock rhythm section, and lets Eno open empty space without erasing the songs. The later fame of \u00ab\u00a0Heroes\u00a0\u00bb<\/em> sometimes shadows this first chapter, The method starts here: short forms and a studio experiment. He does not fill every bar with personality.<\/p>\n

Side one holds the songs. Side two holds the space those songs left open. Producers and bands still use that split when a track needs air.<\/p>\n

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\u00c0 lire aussi<\/h3>\n