Additional information
Personnel: David Bowie (vocals, guitar, cello, harmonica, saxophone, piano, synthesizer, vibraphone, xylophone, pump bass, percussion, tapes, sound effects); Brian Eno (vocals, guitar, piano, Chamberlain, synthesizer); Carlos Alomar, Ricky Gardener (guitar); Eduard Meyer (cello); Roy Young (piano, Farfisa organ); Peter, Paul (piano, Arp synthesizer); George Murray (bass); Dennis Davis (percussion); Iggy Pop, Mary Visconti (background vocals). Recorded at Chateau d'Herouville, France and Hansa By The Wall, Berlin, Germany. The first (Heroes and Lodger would follow) of Bowie's three Berlin albums. Living there as a semi-recluse for three years, he worked with Svengali/producer Brian Eno and the results of their collaborations helped change the face of the European mainstream. Artists such as Gary Numan, Ultravox and OMD were indebted to the sound Bowie had created with the synthesizer to build a somewhat terse wall of sound. Critically acclaimed, but a relative commercial failure, apart from the surprise `Sound And Vision' hit single, it remains as a pertinent reminder of Bowie's ability to surprise and enlighten.
Reviews
Rolling Stone (11/22/01, p.90) - 5 stars out of 5 - "...LOW flows together into a lyrical, hallucinatory, miraculously beautiful whole, the music of an overstimulated mind in an exhausted body..." Q (p.108) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "[A]n album of mournfully sincere synthesizer music." Q (10/91) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...the critical acclaim (LOW) received at the time still seems justified....a crucial part of rock history..." Q (6/00, p.80) - Ranked #14 in Q's "100 Greatest British Albums" Mojo (Publisher) (2/02, p.84) - "...The first and best of the so-called Berlin trilogy....'Sound And Vision', a remarkable venture into hypno-disco, typifies the approach. Hooks and melodies abound, but listen a little deeper and you'll hear some of the most radically constructed - and produced - 'pop' ever made." NME (Magazine) (9/18/93, p.19) - Ranked #24 in NME's list of The Greatest Albums Of The '70s. NME (Magazine) (10/2/93, p.29) - Ranked #67 in NME's list of the `Greatest Albums Of All Time.'