Rosie Lowe : Now, You Know Review

Rosie Lowe is back with her most raw and unfiltered release to date, Now, You Know, released by Blue Flowers. Taking its title from a postcard unearthed on a dig through at her local Deptford market, its scrawled message from the past resonated with her compulsion to act on impulse. ‘Now, You Know’ became a mantra to encapsulate a new era of creative expression, and the mixtape provides a snapshot of an artist who continues to forge a singular path and leave as many doors open as possible ahead of her highly anticipated third album. Lowe retreated to a cabin in the Devon woods, converting a tiny shed into a studio to write the album in isolation. What emerged was playful, experimental, sparse, and warped-vocal meditations. Empowered and emboldened following her departure after almost a decade from the Universal-owned Wolf-Tone Records, Lowe fully embraced her freedom to explore every creative impulse.

“No Idea” has a straightforward lyrical dispossession set to an electro-pop drum groove and flowing bassline. Lowe’s voice is seductive and pure as she sings above the sparse instrumentation. Her added vocal backgrounds add fullness and richness to various phrases. The song structure is very underdeveloped and straightforward. Lowe’s goal was to make the album sound DIY, and it sounds undone at the seams by design and purposely.

“Would You Stay?” follows in the same vein, with a low-fi DIY R&B electro-pop groove. Here the textures are more varied and richer with touches of male/female singing harmonies, synths, and instrument counterpoints. The project’s production took center-stage when Lowe returned to London with contributions from Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Nick Hakim), Tom Henry (Gotts Street Park), AVI (Eska, Arlo Parks), and Tom Driessler (Yussuf Kamaal, Jordan Rakei) as well as a host of other new collaborators. Lowe expands, “Not being able to physically be in a room with people crystallized the opportunity to see this project through on my own whilst collaborating remotely with different people I love and admire wherever they were based. I felt a new sense of freedom to be able to create something away from a label schedule, and it left me with this strong desire to create something that captured where I was at without overthinking it.”

Now, You Know is the first solo material since Lowe’s much-adored second album, YU, which saw her named one of 6Music’s most played artists of 2019 and appear everywhere from COLORs to tours with Hot Chip, Jungle, and Shura. This project is stripped down, but still, her creativity shines through in new ways on multiple selections.

Rosie Lowe: Website