Lowered

Lowered is a solo and collaborative project founded by UK artist Chris Gowers.

Loosely described as “acoustic abstract drone music”, recordings are slow and contemplative, and explore the intricacies of tone, the subjectivity of experience and the nature of environment.

Lowered employs reductive playing processes that centre on the timbral qualities of the instruments as well as the space in which they are recorded, allowing the sounds to breathe and evolve.

This is not improvised music however, and while aleatoric processes form the basis of many works, compositions are carefully developed to occupy a counterpoint between distance and control.

Recording takes place without any digital effects or treatment, instead relying on experiments with microphone placement and naturally reverberant recording spaces.

The debut LP ‘Lost Seas’ sketched loose, minimal compositions based principally around piano and cello. The follow-up ‘Arche’ series sees a further distillation of Lowered's ascetic sonic palette by presenting 30 minute drone studies of single ancient instruments.