Hugo Wilcken
Auteur de Low
A propos de l'auteur
Hugo Wilcken is a Paris-based, Australian-born writer and translator
Crédit image: (c) jody johnson
Œuvres de Hugo Wilcken
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Date de naissance
- 1964
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- Australia
- Lieu de naissance
- Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- Lieux de résidence
- Paris, France
Membres
Critiques
Listes
Prix et récompenses
Vous aimerez peut-être aussi
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 5
- Membres
- 297
- Popularité
- #78,942
- Évaluation
- 3.8
- Critiques
- 17
- ISBN
- 23
- Langues
- 3
- Favoris
- 1
Review of the Bloomsbury Academic 33 and 1/3 paperback (August 19, 2005), released simultaneously with the eBook.
Reading David Bowie's Low after reading Brian Eno's Another Green World (2007) was a natural as Eno joined Bowie in recording the album in 1976 while still very much under the influence of using his Oblique Strategies methods. The Oblique Strategies: Over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas* (1975) are a set of offbeat texts printed on cue cards as assembled by Eno together with artist Peter Schmidt. They were used as a method of breaking out of an impasse or writer's block in an artist's work. Not all of Bowie's musicians were enthused about the process, but things still managed to resolve themselves.
See album cover at https://i.discogs.com/U3pqMqj3_qkfW3A7TSy0MJCOfaPuERLdNEWjjxgFjRs/rs:fit/g:sm/q:...
Album cover for Low by David Bowie from 1977. Image sourced from Discogs.
Hugo Wilcken's summary of Low's album tracks is preceded by a survey of Bowie's personal issues involving drug-induced paranoia while recording his album Station to Station the previous year, as well as the recording of Iggy Pop's The Idiot (released March 1977) in France during the sessions just before Low. Bowie and Pop had moved to Europe, initially to France and then to Berlin, in order to escape the LA drug culture. Wilcken's overview of this extended period was excellent and I very much enjoyed the story the beginning of Bowie's Berlin Trilogy (1976-1979) series of albums which is still the Bowie music that I most enjoy listening to almost 50 years later.
See book cover at https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1710959355...
The cover image for the movie tie-in edition of "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1963) by Walter Tevis which adapts the image from the "Low" album cover. Image sourced from Goodreads.
Soundtrack
Listen to the full 11-track Low album via a YouTube playlist which starts here or on Spotify here.
Trivia and Links
David Bowie's Low is part of the Bloomsbury Academic 33 1/3 series of books surveying significant record albums, primarily in the rock and pop genres. The GR Listopia for the 33 1/3 series is incomplete with only 38 books listed as of May 2024. For an up-to-date list see Bloomsbury Publishing with 193 books listed as of May 2024.
Footnote
* I'm somewhat surprised that the NABers (i.e. Not A Bookers) have not found and deleted this one yet. But perhaps their activities have become more restrained since the NAB Wars of 2020-2021.… (plus d'informations)