The Lowest Pair – The Perfect Plan
Delicata Records – 24 April 2020
Taking their name from a John Hartford poem, The Lowest Pair show their colours as irreverent conspirators intent on using traditional instrumentation to create a new vocabulary on The Perfect Plan. From the plains of Arkansas, Kendl Winter eventually found her way to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, before a chance meeting with Minnesotan Palmer T. Lee led to the formation of The Lowest Pair back in 2013.
Five albums in, the pair turned to Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis to produce their latest effort. Before recording the album, Winter headed to the South Pole, working in a scientific research station. Lee, on the other hand, headed to a writer’s retreat in Southwestern Wisconsin. Fully recharged and reinvigorated they headed into Omaha’s Arc Studios.
Twin guitars, plucked and strummed, form the backing for How Far Would I Go. Winter takes the lead, while Lee adds harmonies. A wonderfully romantic chorus states clearly,
“I see you in the morning sun and I would never, I would never be the one that cast you out.” As the song fades out, Mogis adds touches of mellotron, before percussion and banjos take Too Late Babe into previously uncharted territory.
The drums positively crackle on Wild Animals as intertwined vocals merge with banjos and organ. Winter makes it clear, “‘Wild Animals’ is about following curiosity and intrigue into the mysterious places that they can take you, being both frightened and excited by a wilder side, internally or externally, and not wanting to return to normalcy after experiencing the ecstatic, all the while trying to hold steady.”
Winter’s voice is an intriguing instrument, at times strong and pure, yet able to offer a natural country twang at a moment’s notice. Never affected, Cast Away rests on a bed of banjo and guitar, beautifully organic. Mogis treats these songs with a sense of care, Morning Light swelling on a churchy organ before drums and electric guitars enter. Massed vocals add to the magic. The mournful slide on Take What You Can Get presages a tale of loving and losing with a chorus that spells it out, “You take what you can get when you can get it. You can’t take it back now you already it spent it. I tried to love you and don’t you forget it.”
Subtly nuanced, The Perfect Plan suggests The Lowest Pair are a duo offering a blend of music and musings to deliver respite from today’s current journey into uncharted territories. They are the antidote for what ails you.
Order via Bandcamp: https://thelowestpair.bandcamp.com/album/the-perfect-plan
Photo credit: Sarah Kathryn Wainwright