‘I'M A SNOB FROM THE ART WORLD, SO I NATURALLY THINK I HAVE A BETTER IDEA OF OUR CULTURE '
NATURAL SELECTION
Underground indie legend Lou Barlow is finally living up to all his names. Words: Mark Robertson
ou Barlow has got a whole bunch of L cats. Big. huge. lal beasts. ‘They've lust
kind of taken over our house,‘ he says while trying to avoid being run over in the chaotic streets of New York. 'They're wild and feral. they JUSI eat sleep and shit and we have little bearing on what they do — they just adopted us. But we love them anyway.‘
The same c0uld be said about the mUSlC of Lou Barlow. It slowly creeps into your unconSCious and engulfs you with its charms. These charms have been celebrated with fervour in some corners — he did a three-night residency in Glasgow a 00uple of years ago — but remain an undiscovered secret for most.
Barlow is a complicated man. He belligerently plucked the bass for Dinosaur Jr, but gave up playing second fiddle to J Mascis and set but on his own. venting his musical spleen with Sebadoh. where he not only defined the true indie 'do it yourself for yourself' aesthetic but established himself as one of America's finest underground rock songwriters. He enjoyed success under various other guises too: ‘The plan was to do the straight rock band stuff as Sebadoh. the solo home-recorded stuff as Sentridoh and the more experimental. electronic-y tinged stuff as Folk Implosion,‘ he says. 'But it's become one big musical mess.‘
Since the departure of musical sparring partner Jon Davis. Barlow recruited a new pair of collab0rators and constructed the The New Folk Imp/03ion album. Where previous Folk Implosion action was a Meccano adventure of sampled beats. found sounds and Barlow's soft vocal and guitar strums. for TNF/ the beats and bleeps are all but gone. 'I wanted to strip away the samples and put a bit more blood into it.‘ Barlow says. ‘I wanted something a little less experimental and a little more . . . well, folk.’
I The Folk Implosion play CCA, Glasgow. Sat 26 Apr; Venue. Edinburgh, Sun 27 Apr.
You could do worse than check these out . . . a Cinerama I Manitoba I The Pastels See listings on page 49 for full details.
2.: All—9, Ma, 27;? THE LIST 17