David Bowie's Low

(Paperback)

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Description

Los Angeles, 1976. David Bowie is holed up in his Bel-Air mansion, drifting into drug-induced paranoia and confusion. Obsessed with black magic and the Holy Grail, he's built an altar in the living room and keeps his fingernail clippings in the fridge. There are occasional trips out to visit his friend Iggy Pop in a mental institution. His latest album is the cocaine-fuelled Station To Station (Bowie: "I know it was recorded in LA because I read it was"), which welds R&B rhythms to lyrics that mix the occult with a yearning for Europe, after three mad years in the New World. Bowie has long been haunted by the angst-ridden, emotional work of the Die Brucke movement and the Expressionists. Berlin is their spiritual home, and after a chaotic world tour, Bowie adopts this city as his new sanctuary. Immediately he sets to work on Low, his own expressionist mood-piece.

Reviews

David Bowie's album Low, released in 1977, is an inspired high point for the singer/actor/musician/icon, yet the record still fails to generate the attention it deserves. Hugo Wilcken's Low will hopefully put an end to the long neglect....his book will captivate Bowie fans and the musically inquisitive looking for a lost gem from a name artist. Fascinating for rock historian types who are drawn in to the never-ending debate of who influenced who, and those that simply want to know the stories behind the songs. Devotees will be anxious to rediscover a forgotten favorite....an absorbing and appealing analysis, thankfully sans the type of mind-numbing prose that often accompanies this type of scrutiny. Once Bowie's long career has concluded Low will surely stand as his creative apex, and Hugo Wilcken's book will be its knowing and worthy companion. * Drastic Plastic Press *
No record exists in a vacuumespecially not one of David Bowies from the 1970s. Low is the first in his famed Berlin Trilogy Wilcken doesnt get around to discussing Low until nearly halfway through the book, and while such a lengthy prelude could easily descend into aimlessness or self-indulgence, here it shows the extent that Low works as both a comment on Bowies previous records and a guide for his subsequent ones -- Stephen M. Deusner * Pitchfork *

Author Bio

Hugo Wilcken is a Paris-based, Australian-born writer and translator. His first novel, The Execution, was published by HarperCollins in 2002. ("A remarkably accomplished debut heralding the arrival of a noteworthy talent"- Publishers Weekly.) It was well reviewed, and has since been translated into Dutch and German. A second novel, Colony,was published in August 2007.