After listening to the live album the other day, I had to pull this out for another listen. I really didn’t get this the first time I heard it, though now I place it as my second favourite Dave album after Ziggy; but I was in good company in not getting it at first, cos in 1977 a bunch of critics (and his own record label) didn’t get it either. I don’t entirely blame them (though Charles Shaar Murray’s description of it as “an act of purest hatred and destructiveness” was kind of ludicrous), cos I suppose it was a fairly what-the-fuck album even in 1977, especially coming after Station to Station. Side two in particular must’ve seemed just alien. Somehow the thing was still popular once RCA grudgingly released it…
Splendid production and a quite remarkable range of sounds at work, and it’s got “Sound and Vision” on it, which is only one of his best singles (the remix of the latter on the Ryko issue of the album is less so, shall we say). And that drum sound. I know Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padgham get the credit for gated reverb, and Visconti didn’t actually do gated reverb as such on Low, but that harmoniser box he did use came up with much the same effect.
