Pre-1986, pre-Lifes Rich Pageant, I spent a lot of time listening to "Album Oriented" rock and roll radio. It was the early 1980s, when the 1960s weren't such a distant memory, when the 1970s were still current. The Beatles, The Kinks, The Who, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Tom Waits, The Band, U2, Fleetwood Mac, and -- yes -- Bruce Springsteen. Just like any other time in pop music history, there was plenty of terrible music, too; but there are songs and sounds from that time that stay with me to this day. Something about listening to Lowlight's debut LP, Where Do We Go From Here, brings back lots of memories of the "good stuff" from that time in my listening life.
And Where Do We Go From Here is about as eclectic as a few hours spent listening to WNEW could be back in the day. From country twang to atmospheric synths, Lowlight play with many of the sounds that characterized my own listening during my early and mid teens.
The nighttime field recording and plaintive guitar of "Glitter and Dust Pt. 1" open the record and establish the sense of openness and space that runs through much of the album. That continues with "Why Wander," an appropriately rambling slice of Americana that will be recognizable to anyone who's been to a Lowlight live performance. Singer / guitarist / lyricist, Renee Maskin -- like Stevie Nicks or Tom Petty or Bob Dylan -- isn't a belter, but imbues this and all of the songs with a character that is uniquely hers. Themes of (involuntary) movement, both physical and psychological, pop up for the first of many times.
We change gears a bit for the title track, if not thematically then sonically. This time, the feeling of expansiveness comes from Dana Sellers's synths. The title question, "Where do we go from here?", combined with that sound, gives the sense of being trapped in place in a great, big world.
Harmonicas, banjo, and wailing guitars characterize the upbeat farewell of "Lines in the Road," while it's back to the hum of synthesizers for ups and downs of life chronicled in "Bones." In between, "Collisions in C" sounds like the wide-eyed arrival at some destination.
The rhythm section of Colin Ryan (drums) and Rey Rivera (bass) shines on "Motel Chronicles;" and, as it has throughout the record, Derril Sellers's guitar adds atmosphere and detail. "Glitter and Dust Pt. 2" is a bluesy guitar interlude that gives the sense of standing alone at a crossroads deciding which direction to take.
"Dirt" is the heaviest track on the album with explosive guitar and drum crashes revealing some of the prog rock influences of several of the members of Lowlight, especially on the outro. '50s-inflected "'86 Parisienne" -- as so many great rock songs do -- uses a car, an old Pontiac, as a metaphor for life. In this case, for being stuck or "stranded" without the keys. "Canal and Bourbon" closes the album, and it's a quiet, melancholy memory.
I've had the opportunity to watch Lowlight for a little more than a year; and what started as a project that I would have called outlaw country or something similar in the beginning has evolved into a synthesis of many of the sounds of classic (and not in the radio-format sense, but in the timeless sense) rock. Principal songwriter Renee Maskin is a restless spirit; and, on Where Do We Go From Here, she and Lowlight pull from a pool of influences -- from Dylan to Bowie -- to create the feeling that comes with the constant search for one's physical or spiritual place in the world. They're still searching by the end of the record, but the search is always the most interesting part anyway.
Where Do We Go From Here is out now on BNS Sessions.
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