Joel and I were fans of a trio from Duluth, Minnesota, called Low (...). Their slow, deliberate music drew attention to every musical gesture that the group made. Low used silence to great effect, as guitarist-singer Alan Sparhawk told a college newspaper in 1997: "I think there's such a potent emptiness between two events... That emptiness between two events is just as important as the events themselves and when you strip time down and focus on it, it can be a very powerful and versatile thing." (p. 172)