In 1995, Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson released a mostly-forgotten album together called "Orange Crate Art", and I found myself in LA interviewing the pair. It was a pretty unusual trip, ending in Wilson’s front room, where he claimed that his secret was “abstaining from orgasm”,performed “Satisfaction” and an updated version of “Surfer Girl” for me on his grand piano, then offered me $100 to get my ropey dictaphone recordings played on the radio. Before that, though, I found myself in a less ostentatious house, one that felt more like the home of an academic than a music legend. Here, Van Dyle Parks spent a good part of the interview guiding me through a pile of art books, enthusing about Franz Bischoff, Alfred R Mitchell, Granville Redmond and other generally obscure painters who, in the early 20th Century, had established a mellow Californian outpost of impressionism. I was thinking about these pictures, and about Parks’ work in general, the other day, playing a new album by a composer and multi-instrumentalist called Robert Stillman. Those Californian artists reflected a strong tendency in Parks himself: a genteel, whimsical, rustic vision of their homeland; a kind of Americana very different to what we normally associate with the word. In this canon of Americana, Stephen Foster (the composer of “Oh Susanna”, among other standards) and Aaron Copeland take greater prominence than Robert Johnson and Hank Williams, and the music works like a soundtrack for uncertain, sepia-tinted memories, where folksong merges into classical forms, rather than hard-edged roots reportage. "Machine’s Song" is, apparently, Robert Stillman’s third album, though I’ve only come across him in passing before, when he played keyboards on Hiss Golden Messenger’s lovely "Root Work" live album. It’s an instrumental album, based on solo shows Stillman played as a one-man band, operating the drums with his feet while he sat at the piano. Not the sort of set-up you’d immediately compare with ornate Parks fantasias like "Song Cycle", but the vibe on Machine’s Song is very similar, a sort of creaky, uncanny music that creates an impressionistic picture of old America. There are affinities with more recent artists, of course: Tom Waits’ sinister carnies, maybe; Mercury Rev, who approached this neighbourhood on parts of "Deserter’s Songs"; Richard Swift’s Tin Pan Alley swagger on "The Novelist". Stillman, though, takes things much further, towards abstraction and the territory of Jim O’Rourke. O’Rourke’s a massive Parks fan, incidentally, and an interview I did with him once degenerated into much justified ranting about Parks’ superiority to Todd Rundgren. Anyhow, Stillman can write grand tunes like “Broadwar”, but he’s also fascinated with noise collages that are, in their way, just as evocative. Bells ring on like old fire engines tearing into the night, while keyboards and horns conjure up the sound of trains rolling across vast expanses. If we normally associate Americana with the stories of outlaw characters – hobos, drifters, whatever - who might be riding the trains, "Machine’s Song", as the title suggests, gives a voice to the trains themselves. “All music and sound composed, performed and recorded by Robert Stillman for Archaic Future,” read the sleevenotes; perhaps we could call it, ‘Avant-Garde Nostalgia’, too?

There is something deeply weird about seeing four people onstage at a Low gig. In recent years, it has often seemed as if Alan Sparhawk, in particular, has sought to transcend or subvert people’s expectations of how Low should sound. Surely, though, filling out the sound with a keyboard player is tantamount to sacrilege? As it turns out, the recruitment of Eric Pollard, who also plays drums alongside Sparhawk and bassist Steve Garrington in Retribution Gospel Choir, mostly works just fine. His keyboard work is largely restricted to discreet drones, barely noticeable. It’s only when he’s not playing – on something as brutal as “Majesty/Magic”, say – that you realise how much of Low’s signature sound depended on space between the notes. Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s great talent, though, has been to slowly modify Low’s signature sound; they have, after all, been adding textures since “Songs For A Dead Pilot”, nearly 15 years ago. Pollard’s most notable innovation, perhaps – besides his aesthetically jarring red spectacles – is his harmonies, which slip in from time to time to flesh out the patented Sparhawk/Parker blend. Again, discretion is key, and Pollard never detracts from the uncanny husband/wife harmonies. On “Something’s Turning Over”, though, his presence crystallises the song’s relationship with the genteel end of the ‘60s folk revival: Low sound, remarkably, like the Peter, Paul & Mary of the apocalypse. This excellent, longish show begins with a set piece display of their new power: a short “Le Noise” squall from Sparhawk, then a hefty version of “Nothing But Heart”, as pummelling as the version on “C’Mon”, even without the assistance of Nels Cline. Not for the last time tonight, the sheer volume of the harmonies is striking, as is the precision with which the quartet play. For much of the gig, Sparhawk gives the compelling impression of a man who can only just hold his Neil Young fantasies in check: on “Witches”, in particular, the tension between Low’s tight structures and his possible heroics seems palpable. After nearly an hour and a half he does crack, more or less, on “Violent Past” and “Breaker”, the latter sounding as much like its Retribution Gospel Choir incarnation as the Low original take. There’s a sense, though, that the band are constantly reworking all their songs: although they play all of “C’Mon”, much of it has evolved – become darker, perhaps – now. “Especially Me”, for instance, has an ominous, thrumming undertow to it which it shares with “Monkey” and “Canada” here. Elsewhere, Parker’s drumkit might not have expanded, but her technique has, so that “You See Everything” has a charming jazz shuffle going on. Always, though, there’s that meticulous and overarching grasp of dynamics, with the core value of the band always visible. Along with “Canada”, the encore features “Two Step”, “Laser Beam” and “That’s How You Sing Amazing Grace”, spare and brilliant reiterations of how the Parker/Sparhawk blend is one of the most distinctive and, to me at least, powerful sounds of the last 20 years. As mentioned relentlessly (cryptically or otherwise) these past few weeks, I’ve been playing the new Gillian Welch album a lot, and it strikes me there are strange congruities between the Low pair and Welch and David Rawlings: all those Neil Young and Richard & Linda Thompson allusions; the intuitive harmonies and a calm musical aesthetic which might tentatively be described as passionate austerity. Whatever, “C’Mon” and “The Harrow And The Harvest” are two of the year’s best, I’d say, and this was a fine show. Anyone else there? SETLIST 1 Nothing But Heart 2 Nightingale 3 You See Everything 4 Monkey 5 Silver Rider 6 Witches 7 Especially 8 $20 9 Pissing 10 Last Snowstorm Of The Year 11 Try To Sleep 12 Done 13 Majesty/Magic 14 Something’s Turning Over 15 California 16 Breaker 17 Violent Past ~ 18 Two Step 19 That’s How You Sing Amazing Grace 20 Canada 21 Laser Beam