When Robert Lowe unveiled his one-man improv band, Lichens, at the Empty Bottle last August, Kranky Records co-owner Bruce Adams wasn’t expecting to find his next signing. But soon after Lowe started playing, fingerpicking acoustic guitar and layering eerie wordless wails with a sampler pedal, he was hooked. “I was standing there with Tom and Christina Carter from Charalambides watching Rob, and it’s one of those sort of moments where you look at each other and go, ‘Did you just see what I saw?’” Adams says. “I was completely knocked out.”
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Adams brought his label partner, Joel Leoschke, to a Lowe gig a few weeks later. They soon hashed out a deal to release Lichens’ debut album, The Psychic Nature of Being, which came out last month. The album is a huge departure from Lowe’s work as a bassist in the 90 Day Men. But since the band went on hiatus in March, Lowe’s eagerly embraced the opportunity to work on a host of new projects–he serves as an occasional studio hand in TV on the Radio and has as many as five new albums in the works.
Lowe had long thought about playing some kind of minimalist live improv music–he sold CD-Rs of his home recordings at 90 Day Men shows and finished the first track for Lichens’ debut in early 2004–but he wasn’t able to find the time to finish the record until this past March. Recording at Soma Electronic Music Studios and the now defunct Humboldt Park arts space Camp Gay, Lowe brought in a variety of instruments–including acoustic and electric guitar, fife, and bells–and experimented with different mike setups to capture his ethereal vocalization.
Lowe’s cohorts in the 90 Day Men have also moved on to other projects. Guitarist Brian Case joined the Ponys and has a solo act, Parish School; keyboardist Andy Lansangan plays with Sterling; and Cayce Key plays drums in Half Cut. But Lowe says the 90 Day Men are still a going concern. “We’re all doing things really steadily,” he says. “But we’re definitely still a band.” He notes that the group’s committed to playing a festival in Austria in April, “under the constraints that we actually have [new] music written by then, which shouldn’t be a problem.”
When: Mon 10/10, 9:30 PM
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Saverio Truglia.
