This recording – a sort of centerpiece to Ball of Wax 33 – is a wonderful example of what happens when you get a group of gifted musicians playing live together in a room with one of Seattle’s best engineers. Lowmen Markos‘s “White City” was recorded live at Jack Straw Productions for Doug Haire’s long-running Sonarchy Radio program, broadcast in the wee hours of Sunday nights on KEXP, but nothing about this recording suggests it wasn’t the product of weeks of labor in the studio. “White City” is beautifully arranged and performed; like some of the best instrumental music it slowly draws you in with subtlety and beauty. It moves in waves, ever so gradually building to the inevitable climax, but never quite walloping you over the head with rocktacular riffs (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Lowmen Markos is playing at the Ball of Wax 33 release show on Saturday, September 7th at Conor Byrne. Their epic soundscapes should be the perfect cap to the evening, and will doubtless send us all buzzing c0ntentedly out into the Ballard night.