Lowly

Denmark's Lowly stand out as an experimental pop ensemble whose conservatory-honed skills merge with an unquenchable sense of warmth, awe, and discovery. Their debut full-length Heba from 2017 wove together velvety singing, guitar textures, and electronic elements into richly textured yet unpredictable arrangements, an approach that 2019's Hifalutin expanded by folding in R&B flavors and broadening the overall sonic horizon. With Keep Up the Good Work in 2023 the quintet reinvented their palette once again, wrapping empathetic compositions in intimate electro-acoustic atmospheres.

The band first assembled in 2014 when keyboardist Kasper Staub, vocalist and guitarist Nanna Schannong, vocalist Soffie Viemose, bassist and keyboardist Thomas Lund, and percussionist Steffen Lundtoft crossed paths at the Aarhus music academy. Early notice arrived via the single "Daydreamers" and the 2015 EP Sink Way into Me, their introduction on Simon Raymonde's Bella Union imprint. Toward the end of 2016 the track "Deer Eyes" foreshadowed the grandeur of their February 2017 debut album Heba, which included tenor saxophonist Jacob Danielsen alongside soprano Anna Maria Wierød and co-production from Efterklang's sound engineer Anders Boll.

While readying their follow-up, Lowly played a show at Brønshøj Water Tower, a reverberant suburban Copenhagen space that forced them to pare down their sound to prevent muddiness; that lesson carried into the making of Hifalutin, captured by Boll inside a vast warehouse lined with numerous microphones. Released in April 2019, the record brought spoken-word passages and R&B touches into the group's sweeping style. Lowly resurfaced in February 2023 with Keep Up the Good Work. Once more helmed by Boll, its introspective material drew from the COVID-19 global pandemic and the realities of parenthood, foregrounding gentle acoustic details throughout the instrumentation.