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If every singer-songwriter had this much power behind such an economy of words, we'd probably all have a higher consciousness by now. Maybe that's what Sam Lowry's nudging us toward, one breathy, retributive melody at a time. - Splendid E-Ziine
Discography
With/Without
Songs of My Enemy
The September Letters
Between the Lotus and the Han
down songs from the exile suite
Photos
Bio
Over the course of nine years and four critically acclaimed albums, Bloomington, Indiana's Sam Lowry has slowly been perfecting his unique brand of dark Americana, sharpening the cut of his voice and deepening the impact of his words.
Lowry's autobiographical lyrics have always been fearless in their examination of the complicated relationships of the everyday. The small, noble, and not so noble, reasons we choose to be with others. The commitments of guilt, the despair of solitude, the belief in love, and all the rest.
Lowry's songwriting occupies the dark corner where the poetry of Leonard Cohen shares a drink with Tom Waits midnight observations, while his albums sonically occupy the kind of adventurous gothic American territory traveled by (smog) and Sparklehorse. Helping Lowry complete his vision is a veritable who's who from the fertile Bloomington music scene; including regular appearances from members of Murder by Death and Early Day Miners.
Lowry has spent a good portion of the last several years on the road, with over 600 shows, sharing the stage with bands such as Murder by Death, Langhorne Slim, Asobi Seksu, the Good Life, Early Day Miners, Azure Ray, Mock Orange, Lucero, Codeseven, Vedera, Unwed Sailor, Rocky Votolato, the Appleseed Cast, William Elliott Whitmore, Fake Problems, Frontier Ruckus, the Woes, Blind Pilot, Melissa Ferrick and the Hackensaw Boys, playing everything from basements, coffee houses, dive bars and historic theaters to festivals like MACRock, Bloomingtonfest and Pygmalion.
2009 finds Lowry touring in support of his fifth full-length album, With/Without. Unconventionally recorded live in a single day, in the main hall of a church-cum-recording studio, it finds Lowry leading his band comprised of Sarah Balliet (Murder by Death), Sophia Travis and Nathaniel Seer through revisonary versions of older songs coupled with new ones.
Recorded with only two short rehearsals beforehand, the songs pulse, primordially. They move with the energy of four musicians capturing the shape of a song as it happens, forgoing the gamut of endless practices, multiple tracking and overdubs. This comprises the "with" portion of With/Without.
"Without" finds Lowry alone with his guitar capturing new songs in their most raw form, and radically reworking a handful of old ones into their most primal. With no additional instrumentation, the minimal guitar work places his strongest asset, his lyrics, in the foreground and leaves no doubt that his songwriting places him deservedly in the canon of the greats of his generation.
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