As much of a head-turner as their "Drone Not Drones" set for Rock the Garden in June, Low more pleasantly surprised hipster fans at Chicago's Pitchfork Music Festival in July by playing a cover of the recent Rihanna hit "Stay." Reaction was strong enough that the Duluth genre-benders went ahead and recorded the cover at Sacred Heart Studio/Church back home and released it today via Sub Pop Records as a charity single. Sales of the track from iTunes go to Chicago's music-ed nonprofit Rock for Kids.
Around the time of the Pitchfork Fest, Low frontman Alan Sparhawk mentioned via Twitter how much his wife/bandmate Mimi Parker liked Rihanna's ballad. It's pretty obvious from her vocal performance on the re-recording that he wasn't kidding. Sparhawk himself hits some pretty impressive high notes in it, too. I think we can officially call this the anti-drone Low.
Headed back to Chicago for next weekend's Goose Island Festival -- the trio also recorded its latest album "The Invisible Way" in Chitown with producer Jeff Tweedy – Low then heads to Europe in November for a month of gigs everywhere from Cartagena to Schorndorf and Nijmegen. Here's hoping the band takes a good GPS with them.
