Lowlife (band)
Encyclopedia
Lowlife was a Scottish
alternative rock
/dream pop
band
, active from 1985 to 1997. Although the group never obtained mainstream popularity, they developed a cult
following that continues to this day.
band from Grangemouth
, Scotland
, originally consisting of Craig Lorentson (vocals
), David Steel (bass
), Ronnie Buchanan (guitar
) , and Grant McDowall (drums
). The band was managed by Brian Guthrie, brother of Robin Guthrie
of Cocteau Twins
, and had recorded an album, Harmony in Hell (1982), that briefly hit the lower regions of the UK
independent
record chart
s.
In 1983, Steel left the Dead Neighbours in the middle of recording the band’s second album, Strangedays/Strangeways. Upon learning that Cocteau Twins founding member and bassist Will Heggie
had recently departed that band (after a lengthy and reportedly difficult European tour), Guthrie asked Heggie to help Dead Neighbours out in finishing the album’s recording, and join them on a tour opening for Johnny Thunders
. Heggie agreed and, after the album was completed and the tour was done, he stayed on and began rehearsing new material with the band. Guthrie noticed that with Heggie, the entire chemistry of the group suddenly changed and they began forging a completely new, atmospheric sound very different from their original Cramps
-influenced beginnings. Apparently unhappy with the direction they were clearly aiming for, Buchanan abruptly departed the band. A new guitarist was brought in, Stuart Everest, who adapted quickly to the band’s updated vision. In 1984, the group retired the Dead Neighbours moniker for good and rechristened themselves as Lowlife.
, and EPs
would appear on Nightshift, with the exception of their final album, Gush
, which was released on the Anoise Annoys Records label. Rain was modestly successful, receiving generally positive reviews and sold well enough to appear on several independent charts in the UK, US and France.
In 1986, the band’s debut album, Permanent Sleep
was released and received critical praise from several UK and US music publications. Trouser Press
noted that the album “…delves deeper into instrumental and vocal textures, with layers of strummed and picked guitar and slippery bass chords (shades of New Order
) dominating the sound. Despite Lowlife's concentration on ambience, the affecting "Wild Swan" is a lovely song, punctuated by repeated guitar triplets fluttering overhead.” http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=lowlife Melody Maker
said “Lowlife practice a mystical form of musical alchemy, with crystalline perfection.” Sounds
gave the album four stars and commented “Lowlife construct their deep atmospheres through hypnotically mysterious songs…”
An EP, Vain Delights, was released in late 1986. The production of the EP was financed by the band’s new association with Working Week, a recently formed publishing company run by Jeff Chegwin, twin brother of television presenter Keith Chegwin
. Record Mirror
called the release “Profound, melancholic, and reaches the parts other ephemeral pieces of plastic cannot reach.” A song from the EP, “Hollow Gut”, received airplay
on BBC
Radio by both John Peel
and Janice Long
, and a music video
for the song made appearances on UK television, including DEF II
.
The band took six months to record their second album, Diminuendo
. Released in 1987, the album received extremely positive reviews and is generally considered to be the band’s finest full-length effort. Q magazine gave it four stars and observed, “A further phase in Lowlife’s refinement…Evocative and dramatic. But never overbearing.” Melody Maker noted, “Lowlife emerge from a distant eerie grace, out of an echo or pause with unworldly drama. The isolation, resonance of this music can bring to mind the notion of the Music of the Spheres
.” Music Week
said, “Diminuendo is a landmark album, bustling with feeling, dripping with emotion and soft to the touch.” Trouser Press stated, “The aptly titled and excellent Diminuendo reduces Lowlife's volume by stripping the arrangements of their thickening ingredients, leaving only the bass, simple drums and frugal bits of guitar and keyboards to support Lorentson's increasingly ambitious and musical vocals.”
Subsequent to the release of Diminuendo, the group underwent a lengthy UK tour as support to headliners The Go-Betweens
. The tour helped bring Lowlife to a wider audience, and culminated in a critically well-received show at The Town & Country Club
in London, a performance which Guthrie would later describe as “possibly the best set of their career.”
Also in 1987, a live performance of the band specifically shot for BBC Scotland
was broadcast on television, and a single (“Eternity Road”) and an EP (Swirl It Swings) were released.
In 1988, Lowlife rehearsed new material and Guthrie presented demos
of some songs to Working Music, which was associated at the time with Chappell Music. Stephen Fellows, vocalist and guitarist of the Comsat Angels
, heard the demos and agreed to produce the album, but this was dependent on whether Working Music and Chappell Music would commit to finance the recording. However, while discussions were underway, Warner Bros. Records
absorbed Chappell Music, and the Warner regime passed on the option of signing Lowlife. Working Music subsequently dropped the band.
The band started undergoing a level of internal strife. Guitarist Everest was asked by the other band members to leave, for reasons never made clear. Hamish McIntosh was brought into the group as Everest’s replacement.
In 1989, the band’s third album, Godhead
was released. Critical response was slightly less effusive this time, with Music Week noting that the album “…takes us back to that classic case of a band who never reap enough acclaim because they won’t play the game. But they deserve serious attention.” Trouser Press was unimpressed: “The misnamed Godhead lacks the emotional drive that sparks all of Lowlife's other albums and winds up labored and dull, a collection of unaffecting songs that plod — even at brisk tempos.”
, From a Scream to a Whisper
, consisting of previously released songs taken from the band’s earlier singles and albums.
In 1991, Lowlife and Nightshift Records began experiencing a series of financial problems, brought on by the collapse of Rough Trade Distribution, which left small independent labels with far less options to have their various titles distributed to record stores. Guthrie had to borrow a substantial amount of money to finance the recording of the band’s fourth album, San Antorium
. The album received positive but unspectacular reviews, and the sales were no better or worse than their previous offerings. There were no live shows to support the release. The band’s momentum had clearly stagnated.
It would be four years later before the group got around to recording their fifth, and final, album, Gush
. The recording sessions were apparently by a very professional but unenthusiastic band, and the extremely muted critical reviews reflected this lack of excitement. As with San Antorium, Lowlife did not tour to support Gush.
In 1997, after playing fewer and fewer shows to progressively smaller audiences, and with family commitments an ever growing concern for all band members, Lowlife effectively called it quits, although there was never any “official” announcement of a breakup.
In 2006, all of Lowlife’s back catalogue (except Gush) was re-released on CD by LTM, augmented with multiple bonus track
s and extensive liner notes by Brian Guthrie.
The band's website, Permanent Sleep, reported that Craig Lorentson died on June 4, 2010, at the age of 44 after a period of liver and kidney problems. Lorentson's funeral took place on Friday, 11 June 2010.
, LTM.
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
/dream pop
Dream pop
Dream pop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s, when bands like The Passions, Dif Juz, Lowlife and A.R. Kane began fusing post-punk and ethereal experiments with bittersweet pop melodies into dreamy, sensual soundscapes. The term was almost...
band
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
, active from 1985 to 1997. Although the group never obtained mainstream popularity, they developed a cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
following that continues to this day.
Pre Lowlife
Dead Neighbours was an early-1980s psychobillyPsychobilly
Psychobilly is a fusion genre of rock music that mixes elements of punk rock, rockabilly, and other genres. It is one of several subgenres of rockabilly which also include thrashabilly, trashabilly, punkabilly, surfabilly and gothabilly...
band from Grangemouth
Grangemouth
Grangemouth is a town and former burgh in the council area of Falkirk, Scotland. The town lies in the Forth Valley, on the banks of the Firth of Forth, east of Falkirk, west of Bo'ness and south-east of Stirling. Grangemouth had a resident population of 17,906 according to the 2001...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, originally consisting of Craig Lorentson (vocals
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
), David Steel (bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
), Ronnie Buchanan (guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
) , and Grant McDowall (drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
). The band was managed by Brian Guthrie, brother of Robin Guthrie
Robin Guthrie
Robin Guthrie is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing...
of Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals...
, and had recorded an album, Harmony in Hell (1982), that briefly hit the lower regions of the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
independent
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
record chart
Record chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
s.
In 1983, Steel left the Dead Neighbours in the middle of recording the band’s second album, Strangedays/Strangeways. Upon learning that Cocteau Twins founding member and bassist Will Heggie
Will Heggie
Will Heggie is a Scottish musician. He co-founded the Cocteau Twins in 1980 with Robin Guthrie, and served as the bassist for them until 1983 . Immediately after departing the Cocteau Twins, he helped form Lowlife and played bass with them from 1983–1997....
had recently departed that band (after a lengthy and reportedly difficult European tour), Guthrie asked Heggie to help Dead Neighbours out in finishing the album’s recording, and join them on a tour opening for Johnny Thunders
Johnny Thunders
Johnny Thunders, born John Anthony Genzale, Jr. , was an American protopunk guitarist, singer and songwriter.He came to prominence in the early '70s as a member of the New York Dolls...
. Heggie agreed and, after the album was completed and the tour was done, he stayed on and began rehearsing new material with the band. Guthrie noticed that with Heggie, the entire chemistry of the group suddenly changed and they began forging a completely new, atmospheric sound very different from their original Cramps
The Cramps
The Cramps were an American rock band, formed in 1976 and active until 2009. The band split after the death of lead singer Lux Interior. Their line-up rotated much over their existence, with the husband and wife duo of Interior and lead guitarist Poison Ivy the only permanent members...
-influenced beginnings. Apparently unhappy with the direction they were clearly aiming for, Buchanan abruptly departed the band. A new guitarist was brought in, Stuart Everest, who adapted quickly to the band’s updated vision. In 1984, the group retired the Dead Neighbours moniker for good and rechristened themselves as Lowlife.
1980s
In 1985, Lowlife recorded Rain, a 6-song mini-album. It was released on Nightshift Records, a label formed by Guthrie specifically to release material by the band. All subsequent Lowlife LPs, singlesSingle (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
, and EPs
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
would appear on Nightshift, with the exception of their final album, Gush
Gush (album)
Gush was Lowlife's fifth, and final album, released in 1995. The LP was recorded at Mighty Reel Studios in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was released on the Anoise Annoys Records label, the only Lowlife title not to be released by Nightshift Records....
, which was released on the Anoise Annoys Records label. Rain was modestly successful, receiving generally positive reviews and sold well enough to appear on several independent charts in the UK, US and France.
In 1986, the band’s debut album, Permanent Sleep
Permanent Sleep
Permanent Sleep was released in 1986 in Scotland on Nightshift Records, an independent music record label. It was Lowlife's debut album. The LP was recorded at Palladium Studios in Edinburgh, Scotland, during June - July 1986, and released in August of that year...
was released and received critical praise from several UK and US music publications. Trouser Press
Trouser Press
Trouser Press was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow Who fan Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" ...
noted that the album “…delves deeper into instrumental and vocal textures, with layers of strummed and picked guitar and slippery bass chords (shades of New Order
New Order
New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris...
) dominating the sound. Despite Lowlife's concentration on ambience, the affecting "Wild Swan" is a lovely song, punctuated by repeated guitar triplets fluttering overhead.” http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=lowlife Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
said “Lowlife practice a mystical form of musical alchemy, with crystalline perfection.” Sounds
Sounds (magazine)
Sounds was a long-term British music paper, published weekly from 10 October 1970 – 6 April 1991. It was produced by Spotlight Publications , which was set up by Jack Hutton and Peter Wilkinson, who left "Melody Maker" to start their own company...
gave the album four stars and commented “Lowlife construct their deep atmospheres through hypnotically mysterious songs…”
An EP, Vain Delights, was released in late 1986. The production of the EP was financed by the band’s new association with Working Week, a recently formed publishing company run by Jeff Chegwin, twin brother of television presenter Keith Chegwin
Keith Chegwin
Keith Chegwin is an English television presenter, former child actor and singer.-Early career:Chegwin's early roles were in works of the Children's Film Foundation, appearing as Egghead Wentworth in The Troublesome Double Egghead's Robot . He also appeared as a stowaway in Doomwatch episode...
. Record Mirror
Record Mirror
Record Mirror was a British weekly pop music newspaper, founded by Isadore Green and featured, news articles, interviews, record charts, record reviews, concert reviews, letters from readers and photographs. The paper became respected by both mainstream pop music fans and serious record collectors...
called the release “Profound, melancholic, and reaches the parts other ephemeral pieces of plastic cannot reach.” A song from the EP, “Hollow Gut”, received airplay
Airplay (song)
Airplay is a term used in the radio broadcasting industry to state how frequently a song is being played on over-the-air radio stations. For example, a song which is being played several times every day would be classed as receiving a large amount of airplay...
on BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Radio by both John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
and Janice Long
Janice Long
Janice Long is an English radio broadcaster currently working on BBC Radio 2. Her show is on Sunday to Thursday nights from midnight to 02:00. She is the older sister of TV and radio personality Keith Chegwin.-Early career:...
, and a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for the song made appearances on UK television, including DEF II
DEF II
DEF II was a programming strand on BBC Two, which aired at 6pm on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 May 1988 to 23 May 1994, to serve the teenage market. It was produced by Janet Street-Porter, and followed on from her influential youth TV show Network 7, on Channel 4...
.
The band took six months to record their second album, Diminuendo
Diminuendo (album)
Diminuendo was released in 1987 in Scotland on Nightshift Records, an independent music record label. It was Lowlife's second album. The LP was recorded at Palladium Studios in Edinburgh, Scotland, and released in May...
. Released in 1987, the album received extremely positive reviews and is generally considered to be the band’s finest full-length effort. Q magazine gave it four stars and observed, “A further phase in Lowlife’s refinement…Evocative and dramatic. But never overbearing.” Melody Maker noted, “Lowlife emerge from a distant eerie grace, out of an echo or pause with unworldly drama. The isolation, resonance of this music can bring to mind the notion of the Music of the Spheres
Musica universalis
Musica universalis is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies—the Sun, Moon, and planets—as a form of musica . This 'music' is not usually thought to be literally audible, but a harmonic and/or mathematical and/or religious concept...
.” Music Week
Music Week
Music Week is a trade paper for the UK record industry.Founded in 1959 as Record Retailer, it was relaunched on 18 March 1972 as Music Week . On 17 January 1981 the title was again changed, owing to the increasing importance of sell-through videos, to Music & Video Week...
said, “Diminuendo is a landmark album, bustling with feeling, dripping with emotion and soft to the touch.” Trouser Press stated, “The aptly titled and excellent Diminuendo reduces Lowlife's volume by stripping the arrangements of their thickening ingredients, leaving only the bass, simple drums and frugal bits of guitar and keyboards to support Lorentson's increasingly ambitious and musical vocals.”
Subsequent to the release of Diminuendo, the group underwent a lengthy UK tour as support to headliners The Go-Betweens
The Go-Betweens
The Go-Betweens were an indie rock band formed in Brisbane, Australia in 1977 by singer-songwriters and guitarists, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan. They were later joined by Lindy Morrison on drums, Robert Vickers on bass guitar and Amanda Brown on violin, oboe, guitar, and backing vocals,...
. The tour helped bring Lowlife to a wider audience, and culminated in a critically well-received show at The Town & Country Club
The Town & Country Club
The Town & Country Club was a 2,100 capacity theatre-style venue in Kentish Town in North London, England. The venue was built in 1934 and was originally an art deco cinema....
in London, a performance which Guthrie would later describe as “possibly the best set of their career.”
Also in 1987, a live performance of the band specifically shot for BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland is a constituent part of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the publicly-funded broadcaster of the United Kingdom. It is, in effect, the national broadcaster for Scotland, having a considerable amount of autonomy from the BBC's London headquarters, and is run by the BBC Trust, who...
was broadcast on television, and a single (“Eternity Road”) and an EP (Swirl It Swings) were released.
In 1988, Lowlife rehearsed new material and Guthrie presented demos
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
of some songs to Working Music, which was associated at the time with Chappell Music. Stephen Fellows, vocalist and guitarist of the Comsat Angels
Comsat Angels
The Comsat Angels were a post-punk band from Sheffield and Doncaster, England, active from 1978 to 1995. Their music has been described as "abstract pop songs with spare instrumentation, many of which were bleak and filled with some form of heartache." They have been credited as being an influence...
, heard the demos and agreed to produce the album, but this was dependent on whether Working Music and Chappell Music would commit to finance the recording. However, while discussions were underway, Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
absorbed Chappell Music, and the Warner regime passed on the option of signing Lowlife. Working Music subsequently dropped the band.
The band started undergoing a level of internal strife. Guitarist Everest was asked by the other band members to leave, for reasons never made clear. Hamish McIntosh was brought into the group as Everest’s replacement.
In 1989, the band’s third album, Godhead
Godhead (album)
Godhead was Lowlife's third album, released in 1989 in Scotland on Nightshift Records, an independent music record label. The LP had been recorded at Pet Sounds Studios in Glasgow, Scotland. Prior to the recording of the album, original guitarist Stuart Everest had been asked to leave the group by...
was released. Critical response was slightly less effusive this time, with Music Week noting that the album “…takes us back to that classic case of a band who never reap enough acclaim because they won’t play the game. But they deserve serious attention.” Trouser Press was unimpressed: “The misnamed Godhead lacks the emotional drive that sparks all of Lowlife's other albums and winds up labored and dull, a collection of unaffecting songs that plod — even at brisk tempos.”
1990s
In early 1990, following a soccer match accident in which he lost a finger, McDowall decided to retire from the music business and left the band. McIntosh also left, to pursue a career with his own band, Fuel. New guitarist Hugh Duggie and drummer Martin Fleming were brought in as replacements. That same year, while the band adjusted to these most recent personnel changes, Nightshift issued a compilation albumCompilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
, From a Scream to a Whisper
From a Scream to a Whisper
From a Scream to a Whisper was a compilation album consisting of material taken from all of Lowlife's previously released singles, EPs and albums. No new or previously unavailable songs appeared on the album...
, consisting of previously released songs taken from the band’s earlier singles and albums.
In 1991, Lowlife and Nightshift Records began experiencing a series of financial problems, brought on by the collapse of Rough Trade Distribution, which left small independent labels with far less options to have their various titles distributed to record stores. Guthrie had to borrow a substantial amount of money to finance the recording of the band’s fourth album, San Antorium
San Antorium
San Antorium was Lowlife's fourth album, released in 1991 in Scotland on Nightshift Records. The LP was recorded at Tower Studios in Glasgow, Scotland. Personnel changes prior to the album's recording involved the near-simultaneous departures of guitarist Hamish McIntosh and drummer Grant...
. The album received positive but unspectacular reviews, and the sales were no better or worse than their previous offerings. There were no live shows to support the release. The band’s momentum had clearly stagnated.
It would be four years later before the group got around to recording their fifth, and final, album, Gush
Gush (album)
Gush was Lowlife's fifth, and final album, released in 1995. The LP was recorded at Mighty Reel Studios in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was released on the Anoise Annoys Records label, the only Lowlife title not to be released by Nightshift Records....
. The recording sessions were apparently by a very professional but unenthusiastic band, and the extremely muted critical reviews reflected this lack of excitement. As with San Antorium, Lowlife did not tour to support Gush.
In 1997, after playing fewer and fewer shows to progressively smaller audiences, and with family commitments an ever growing concern for all band members, Lowlife effectively called it quits, although there was never any “official” announcement of a breakup.
In 2006, all of Lowlife’s back catalogue (except Gush) was re-released on CD by LTM, augmented with multiple bonus track
Bonus track
In terms of recorded music, a bonus track is a piece of music which has been included on specific releases or reissues of an album. This is most often done as a promotional device, either as an incentive to customers to purchase albums they might otherwise not, or to repurchase albums they already...
s and extensive liner notes by Brian Guthrie.
The band's website, Permanent Sleep, reported that Craig Lorentson died on June 4, 2010, at the age of 44 after a period of liver and kidney problems. Lorentson's funeral took place on Friday, 11 June 2010.
Albums
- Permanent SleepPermanent SleepPermanent Sleep was released in 1986 in Scotland on Nightshift Records, an independent music record label. It was Lowlife's debut album. The LP was recorded at Palladium Studios in Edinburgh, Scotland, during June - July 1986, and released in August of that year...
(1986) - DiminuendoDiminuendo (album)Diminuendo was released in 1987 in Scotland on Nightshift Records, an independent music record label. It was Lowlife's second album. The LP was recorded at Palladium Studios in Edinburgh, Scotland, and released in May...
(1987) - Black Sessions (1988) (Commercially unreleased demosDemo (music)A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
) - GodheadGodhead (album)Godhead was Lowlife's third album, released in 1989 in Scotland on Nightshift Records, an independent music record label. The LP had been recorded at Pet Sounds Studios in Glasgow, Scotland. Prior to the recording of the album, original guitarist Stuart Everest had been asked to leave the group by...
(1989) - San AntoriumSan AntoriumSan Antorium was Lowlife's fourth album, released in 1991 in Scotland on Nightshift Records. The LP was recorded at Tower Studios in Glasgow, Scotland. Personnel changes prior to the album's recording involved the near-simultaneous departures of guitarist Hamish McIntosh and drummer Grant...
(1991) - GushGush (album)Gush was Lowlife's fifth, and final album, released in 1995. The LP was recorded at Mighty Reel Studios in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was released on the Anoise Annoys Records label, the only Lowlife title not to be released by Nightshift Records....
(1995)
Compilation albums
- From a Scream to a WhisperFrom a Scream to a WhisperFrom a Scream to a Whisper was a compilation album consisting of material taken from all of Lowlife's previously released singles, EPs and albums. No new or previously unavailable songs appeared on the album...
(1990) - Eternity Road: Reflections of Lowlife 85–95 (2006)
Singles and EPs
- Rain (1986) EP
- Vain Delights (1986) EP
- Eternity Road (1987) Single
- Swirl It Swings (1987) EP
Main source
Guthrie, Brian, Eternity Road: Reflections of Lowlife 85-95 (2006) CD Liner notesLiner notes
Liner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:...
, LTM.