Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This track comes from Low’s latest album C’mon, released on Sub Pop last April.  Written and sung by Mimi Parker – the Yin component of the band’s creative core – “Especially Me” is said by Alan Sparhawk (the Yang component) to be key in establishing the spirit of the album.  The song is suffused with sweet, unsettling vocal harmonies – a signature part of Low’s sound – and each bar of music is a slight 3 beat crescendo, which creates a perpetual rocking motion.  It sounds like a lullaby, but the lyrics seem to have the opposite intent, “You’ve fallen into slumber/Just wake one more time.”  Its intention is not to relax, but to coax us out of our shells of certainty and weigh the validity of our accepted truths, “as it stands we don’t have a clue/especially me and probably you.”  It’s a message delivered with patience and tenderness.  This is quintessential Low, nothing more and nothing less.  The full album is available on subpop.com.

The track’s official video is worth checking out, too. Some excellent big city time-lapse