Customer Reviews

Lifetime of Temporary Relief

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This superb 4-Disc box set of rarities, live tracks and demos will prove to be a delight for all Low fans. This is definitely NOT an elaborate best-of sampler of the world's greatest slow-core/sad-core band as virtually none of the offerings on hand were culled from their previously released CDs. All of the tracks are relatively obscure and were either never before released or were available on strictly limited edition small label singles. Disc 4 is a DVD that includes a surplus of live music videos (as part of the "Closer Than That" film) as well as several documentaries.

This set has been out since July 20th but Amazon has still not updated the correct tracklisting. For the record, then, A LIFETIME OF TEMPORARY RELIEF: 10 YEARS OF B-SIDES AND RARITIES consists of the following:

Disc 1:
01 Lullaby (demo)
02 Cut (demo)
03 Heartbeat
04 Peanut Butter Toast and American Bandstand
05 Tired
06 I Started a Joke
07 The Plan (demo)
08 Prisoner (demo)
09 Prisoner
10 Tomorrow One
11 Turning Over
12 Bright
13 Walk You Out
14 Tear Down
15 Standby
16 David & Jude
17 Cheek

Disc 2:
01 Venus
02 Boyfriends & Girlfriends
03 Surf
04 No Need (Version 1)
05 Be There
06 Lift
07 Joan of Arc
08 Long Long Long
09 Lion/Lamb (demo)
10 Will the Night (demo)
11 Last Breath
12 Joan of Arc (20 Below Mix)
13 Old Man Song
14 Try Try Try
15 Lord, Can You Hear Me
16 Venus (Time Stereo Dub mix)
17 Those Girls (song for Nico)

Disc 3:
01 I Remember
02 Kindly Blessed
03 Blue-Eyed Devil
04 Sleep at the Bottom
05 When You Walked
06 Back Home Again
07 Don't Drop the Baby
08 Surfer Girl
09 Blowin' in the Wind
10 Open Arms
11 ... I Love
12 Carnival Queen
13 Overhead
14 Don't Carry it All
15 Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me
16 Because You Stood Still
17 Fearless
18 Shots & Ladders

Disc 4: DVD
- Documentaries: Closer Than That (includes live videos for Will the Night, Weight of Water, Don't Understand, Immune, Home, Dinosaur Act, Words, Shame, Over The Ocean, Canada, Looking Out For Hope), In the Fishtank, and Making of Trust

Here's a slightly more detailed tracklisting in regard to the musical contents on this set-

Disc 1:
01 Lullaby (demo)
02 Cut (demo)
03 Heartbeat (Live at American University, Washington D.C.)1994
04 Peanut Butter Toast and American Bandstand (When I'm Hungry, I Eat: Songs About Food | GMZ001)1996
05 Tired (Low e.p. | shine 48 Australia) 1994
06 I Started a Joke (Jabberjaw...Pure Sweet Hell compilation)1996
07 The Plan (demo)
08 Prisoner (demo)
09 Prisoner (The Curtain Hits The Cast lp bonus track) 1996
10 Tomorrow One (The Curtain Hits The Cast lp bonus track) 1996
11 Turning Over (finally... e.p.| Yard U.K. 22) 1996
12 Bright (version 2) (outtake from The Curtain Hits The Cast sessions)
13 Walk You Out (outtake from The Curtain Hits The Cast sessions)
14 Tear Down (outtake from The Curtain Hits The Cast sessions)
15 Standby (outtake from The Curtain Hits The Cast sessions)
16 David & Jude (previously unreleased)
17 Cheek (Duplex Planet compilation)

Disc 2:
01 Venus (SP-392 7") 1997
02 Boyfriends & Girlfriends (SP-392 7") 1997
03 Surf (Australian compilation track)
04 No Need (version 1) (Dirty Three/Low TG183) 1997
05 Be There (version 1) (Over The Ocean U.K. B-side)
06 Lift (The Paper 7" split- Papercut 004) 1997
07 Joan of Arc (TUGS-001 7") 1997
08 Long Long Long (TUGS-001 7") 1997
09 Lion/Lamb (demo from Secret Name sessions)
10 Will the Night (demo from Secret Name sessions)
11 Last Breath (Secret Name lp bonus track) 1999
12 Joan of Arc (20 Below Mix) 1999
13 Old Man Song (Secret Name lp bonus track) 1999
14 Try Try Try (Secret Name Japanese cd)
15 Lord, Can You Hear Me (A Tribute to Spacemen 3"- rgirl2)1998
16 Venus (Time Stereo Dub mix) (Tigerstyle cd split) 2001
17 Those Girls (song for Nico) (Tigerstyle cd split) 2001

Disc 3:
01 I Remember (alternate take, B-side of Immune single)
02 Kindly Blessed (Secretly Canadian compilation)
03 Blue-Eyed Devil (TELEconned: We Want the Airwaves- TRG 89380-2) 1998
04 Sleep at the Bottom (Transient Waves 7" split- rgirl4) 1998
05 When You Walked (Shanti Project Collection- Badman Records)
06 Back Home Again (Take Me Home: A Tribute To John Denver BRCD995) 2000
07 Don't Drop the Baby (previously unreleased)
08 Surfer Girl (Live In Belgium)
09 Blowin' in the Wind (Duluth Does Dylan- Spinout Records) 2000
10 Open Arms
11 ... I Love
12 Carnival Queen (Naked In The Afternoon: A Tribute to Jandek- SUM 10) 2000
13 Overhead (Dinosaur Act B-side TUGS-024) 2000
14 Don't Carry it All (outtake from Things We Lost In The Fire sessions)
15 Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me(CKM003 7") 2001
16 Because You Stood Still (CKM003 7") 2001
17 Fearless (Canada e.p.- Rough Trade) 2002
18 Shots & Ladders 2 (Canada e.p.- Rough Trade) 2002

It's funny how Amazon's page for this box set only lists 10 tracks in the track listing. In fact, there are over 50 songs spread out over 3 CDs, and there is a double-sided DVD which features 3 documentary films and all of Low's music videos to date. If you want to see a more complete track listing, visit chairkickers.com.

You also get a nice booklet with liner notes for all of the songs and lots and lots of pictures..

I really enjoyed the music videos. Before I picked up this box set, I had only ever seen the videos for "Words" and "Shame," so getting to see the others was a treat. I thought the video for "Canada" was very clever - I thought that letting Alan and Mimi's daughter hold one of the red balloons from the "Shame" video was a nice touch.

The documentaries are great, especially "Closer Than That." I've always been of the opinion that Low is a great band, but after seeing these documentaries I am more certain of that opinion than ever. Even though Low tends to attract only modest-sized audiences when they tour, I'm impressed by the care and dedication that they put into their music.

Sometimes people will say that "Low isn't for everybody" but I think that's a shame because while Low may sound different from most other bands, they are really do make great music that deserves a much wider audience. Anyone who likes to hear music by musicians who really care about their music should listen to Low.

to the uninitiated, low are a band from deluth, minnesota who deliver music so unique as to be unparalleled. some describe it as quiet, some would say slow, some say melodic...it's all these things but, to me, one of the most amazing things is that low delivers, this slow, quiet, melodic music with such a power that it can cut you like knife. (sorry for the sad cliche) 'a lifetime of temporary relief' gives us the b-sides and rarites that have been culled together by a band who've been around for many, many years. there are some awesome covers (alan singing open arms in a rediculously high falsetto voice is one of the funnier things i've heard in a long time) and great alternate versions of songs that you may already have come to know and love. (the new version of venus is seriously killer) they've filled 3 cd's to the brim with songs for every low fan out there. (including 3 "secret" songs that i'll leave for your discovery) they've also put together a double-sided DVD including 3 documentaries and all of their music videos, (who knew they had so many?) and a huge booklet detailing each song, filled with really great photos. while this set may not be the best introduction for those of you having never heard low before, it remains an amazing gift to all of us. and if you never have listened to low, hurry up and get some of their albums, and then buy this boxed set. i promise you won't regret it.

If you're a fan of Low, then of course you need no encouragement to buy this tremendous box set. For everyone else--from those of you who haven't quite decided what to think about the world's greatest slowcore band to those of you who have never listened to them but are curious--if you got the moolah buy this set. And then go buy everything else they've ever made. It may take you a year or two to fully get your mind around this stuff, but that's alright. Take it slow and dig it.

The band Low is a treasure and this box set is a gift. The videos of their "greatest hits" on the fourth disk alone make this collection worth buying. Low's other disks including the Great Destroyer are all terrific, but I suggest that this box set is a place to start if you haven't heard them.

What does Low sound like? A couple of the covers they chose seem revealing: The Beatles' Long Long Long and Pink Floyd's Fearless. Quiet and powerful. They are a band of great vocals and harmony, exceptional and sympathetic instrumentation, and they seem to control time.

Even though there are many great songs in the box set, my favorite song here has to be Low's cover of the Journey song Open Arms. I can't help it and I can't explain the appeal of the song and why I gladly anticipate the part where the singer's voice cracks. I listened to the song ten times in a row when I first got the set and numerous repeat listenings to it over the past six months. To put this in perspective, I watch American Idol and I don't care for anything I hear on the show, but I listen to Low's skewed version Open Arms and find it to be completely appealing.

Something else odd: I find the video for the song Words to be extremely comforting to watch. In black and white, the band sits in a boat on a frozen lake. It captures Duluth perfectly.

One other thing I note about Low is that they are the greatest punk band since the Velvet Underground. To play so slowly and quietly and in harmony against the background of a noisy world is the most radical form of music available. Completely defiant, engaging, religious, scary.

Before I bought this boxset, I had listened only to "Trust" and "The great distroyer". They where already a great band for me. But after, they became classic.
This fine collection of songs and videos are a demonstration of artists facing different stages of music production: demos, b-sides, collaborations, covers, live. And they are so good at them! Watching the videos, I was shocked with Sparhawk's onstage attitude.
This box will get you into low. Highly recommended.

Nagisa Nite always struck me as such a unique band, I never thought that there'd ever be anybody who'd match their bare, spare, gorgeous songs. Well, Low is as close as it will probably ever come to that band.

Sure, Alan Sparhawk's voice is not as soothing as Shibayama's, but Mimi Taylor's makes up for it by being a million times more musical than Masako's. Same slow drums, mellow acoustic strums, and same juxtapositions of jarring feedback building up from time to time. A Lifetime of Temporary Relief is a fantastic collection - three CDs of great music, and a double-sided DVD with three documentaries and 11 videos. Low's original songs are all fantatstic, although they might start to sound the same after a while.

Looking at the long, eclectic list of covers that are on offer is also intereting - "I Started A Joke" could be cheezy, but when Mimi does all of the singing she turns it into something really beautiful. Alan sings George Harrison's "Long Long Long" in falsetto at a snail's crawl also very nice. There are two covers of band I am not really familiar with - Spaceman 3 and Soul Coughing - so I can't really comment on these. The John Denver cover "Back Home Again" is, again, sung by Mimi and it's really beautiful - nearly a capella, as it's just her voice accompanied by organ. The cover of the Beach Boys' "Surfer Girl" is also very nice - Alan singing it with Mimi doing harmony. "Blowin' in the Wind" is too familiar to sound very good with the Low treatment. The cover of Journey's "Open Arm" is quite faithful, and unfortunately Alan is no Steve Perry - he does a pretty decent imitation, but cracks and warbles a bit at one point and also starts to laugh near the end. A pity - he nearly had it (if that's what he intended). The Tom T. Hall song "...I Love" is sweet, sung by Mimi, while the cover of a Jandek song is nearly incomprehensible. Its deliver is, however, terrifying. They also do a cover of "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me," one of my LEAST favourite Smiths songs, and they don't win me over with their spare version, sung by Alan. Pink Floyd's "Fearless" is a winner, however. But, as Alan notes in the liner notes, it would be hard to do a BAD version of this song.

One of the interesting things that they do here is the two "Misfits" songs that they do, which means that they do a Low song in the style of the Misfits: horrid recording quality, busted up fast, aggressive, quick 1-2-3-4- intro, and quick fuzzed out chords, with singalong choruses. Hard to tell if Low are Misfits fans or are parodying them.

DVD. The accompanying video is really great. There is a documentary on the recording of Trust, that shows a band doing single tracks, like the bass for "Canada" without any of the backing tracks, for instance. There's also a documentary for the "In the Fishtank" recording that they did with the Dirty Three that is fun, as well as a one hour fly on the wall video that shows the band at home and on the road. John Waters appears, praising the band. Alan does most of the talking (babbling), with Mimi offering the occasional reluctant statement, and Zack only speaks up once. Alan strikes me as a bit wry, not entirely humorless but overall a bit too serious and quite frustrated. Interesting quotes, though: "It's almost impossible to say `I love you' with just music." At one pont he says to his French audience "I don't know any French jokes, but I'll try," then proceeds to say 10 words of French, then five words of German. Great version of "You are my Sunshine," the saddest song ever written. The eleven videos are good, many of them highlight the "minus twenty" feel of some of this Minnesota band's songs. One is frocen and oceanic, one is in a vagina-like pink walled mansion with an "and the band played on" Titanic feeling to it. In another they are playing in a room that is self-destructing! "Looking out for hope" is in memory of Raymond Carver, and may be one of his short stories narrated, I'm not sure. In "Boat to Everest" they finally do what I suspected that they might - take one of their ultra slow songs and film an ultra fast video for it.