Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Lullaby (demo)
2. Cut (demo)
3. Heartbeat
4. Peanut Butter Toast and American Bandstand
5. Tired
6. I Started a Joke
7. The Plan (demo)
8. Prisoner (demo)
9. Prisoner
10. Tomorrow One
11. Turning Over
12. Bright
13. Walk You Out
14. Tear Down
15. Standby
16. David & Jude
17. Cheek

Disc 2:

1. Venus
2. Boyfriends & Girlfriends
3. Surf
4. No Need (Version 1)
5. Be There
6. Lift
7. Joan of Arc
8. Long Long Long
9. Lion/Lamb (demo)
10. Will the Night (demo)
11. Last Breath (demo)
12. Joan of Arc (20 Below Mix)
13. Old Man Song
14. Try Try Try
15. Lord, Can You Hear Me?
16. Venus (Time Stereo Dub Mix)
17. Those Girls (Song for Nico)

Disc 3:

1. I Remember
2. Kindly Blessed
3. Blue-Eyed Devil
4. Sleep at the Bottom
5. When You Walked
6. Back Home Again
7. Don’t Drop the Baby
8. Surfer Girl
9. Blowin’ in the Wind
10. Open Arms
11. ...I Love
12. Carnival Queen
13. Overhead
14. Don’t Carry It All
15. Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
16. Because You Stood Still
17. Fearless
18. Shots & Ladders

Disc 4:

1. Closer Than That
2. In the Fishtank
3. Making of Trust
4. I Remember (Live in Paris)
5. Two-Step (live at Bard College)
6. Will The Night
7. Weight of Water
8. Don’t Understand
9. Immune
10. Home
11. Dinosaur Act
12. Words
13. Shame
14. Over the Ocean (2 versions)
15. Looking Out for Hope
16. Canada

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68614 in Music
• Released on: 2004-07-19
• Number of discs: 3
• Formats: Box set, Enhanced, CD+DVD

Album Description
A Lifetime of Temporary Relief is an extensive collection of rarities, B-sides, demos and outtakes from the past 10 years of Low's career, containing. It starts from their first bedroom recordings going right up to the vinyl-only tracks from their recent CD Trust. There are over 50 songs spread out over 3 CDs, and this package includes a double-sided DVD that features 3 documentary films and all of Low's music videos to date.

Customer Reviews

Box Set Low....
'A Lifetime of Temporary Relief' collects pretty much everything Low released in a non-album sense over a decade, taking in many hard to find joys and offering up a fourth-disc which is a double-sided DVD with promos etc on. 'A Lifetime...' is wonderfully put together, with great artwork and sleeve-notes packed with rarities and alternate-versions of tracks familiar from albums such as 'Secret Name' & 'Long Division.'

Too many songs to detail here- but there are some of the finest Low-songs I've heard present- 'Tomorrow One', 'Peanut Butter Toast and American Bandstand','Joan of Arc','Try Try Try', 'Don't Drop the Baby' & 'Because You Stood Still.' There are some wonderful alternate versions of songs I was previously familiar with- a synth-heavy version of 'I Remember' (which I prefer to the original), a demo of 'Prisoner' & a demo of 'Will the Night.'

Alongside the many great self-composed tracks, there are a wealth of cover-versions- Low being renowned for taking others songs and melding them round their distinctive sound. The strong cover-versions here include 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me' (The Smiths), 'I Started a Joke' (The Bee Gees), 'Heartbeat' (Wire), 'Fearless' (Pink Floyd'), 'Open Arms' (Journey!!), 'Blowin'in the Wind' (Bob Dylan),'Lord, Can You Hear Me?' (Spacemen 3), 'Surfer Girl' (The Beach Boys) & 'Back Home Again' (John Denver). Some of these cover-versions seem superior to the original- I particularly love The Smiths' cover, of a song I rank as one of their finest, particularly when the vocals come together, then reduce down to one-vocal again- the vocal-approach mirroring the theme of the song...

'A Lifetime of Temporary Relief' is an excellent collection of tracks, and a compilation up there with Yo La Tengo's 'Prisoners of Love', Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' 'B-Sides', Belle and Sebastian's 'Push Barman...' & The Replacements' 'All for Nothing/Nothing at All.'

Low's outtakes better than most bands' intakes
This set is so good it's frightening. In fact, I can only bring myself to listen to 1 CD per week - rationing myself, deferring gratification, protecting my aging self from over-excitement, call it what you will.

This is wise music, brave music, music so deep it can hypnotise you. And it's funny too - I love the moment in Open Arms on disc 2 where Alan's angelic voice breaks and he laughs in mid-note. Oh Jesus, stop reading this and buy this incredible bargain now!

Once more with feeling (as usual).
The thing about Low is that even their b-sides or compilation tracks are more soulful or life-affirming than the entire musical output of many other artists, so if the thought of buying a collection of such tracks is putting you off then think again. What you get here is an absolute bargain. Nearly four hours of music over three cds (including the very rare b-side tracks from the long deleted 'Finally' ep aswell as some previously unreleased tunes and a batch of covers that would make a great album in their own right), and a double sided dvd featuring three documentaries, live tracks and all of the Low videos to date. And of course most of the tracks are ...very...very...slow, in the trademark Low way. Similar in style to bands such as Codiene or Galaxie 500, but with the addition of two of the most beautiful and haunting voices I've ever heard there is no better 'slowcore' group out there.
So, buy the album. Then buy their entire back catelogue. Then listen again, and again, and again. And see them live too if you can - one of the most incredible experiences known to man. And then if you find that you don't like this you don't have feeling and would be better off listening to bands like Stereophonics and Ocean Colour Scene. Go figure...