Remembering Mimi Parker, co-founder of Low

[MUSIC - LOW, "LULLABY"] LOW: (SINGING) Cross over and turn.

CATHY WURZER: funeral services are Thursday for Minnesota musician Mimi Parker. She was a co-founder, along with her husband Alan Sparhawk, of the beloved Duluth-based band Low. Mimi, who was 55 years old, died on Saturday after bravely living with ovarian cancer. Music journalist Andrea Swensson has covered Low for many years, previously with The Current. She is on the line. Hey, welcome to "Minnesota Now," my friend. How are you?

ANDREA SWENSSON: Hey, Cathy, so good to be speaking to you, although I wish it wasn't for this reason.

CATHY WURZER: I know. I know. You wrote that the song that we just heard, which is really a lovely song, "Lullaby," highlights Mimi's quest for calmness and beauty amid chaos. Tell me more about her approach as a musician.

ANDREA SWENSSON: Yeah, so that's from Low's first record, all the way back in 1994 when she had just formed the band with her husband, Alan. And they put out this incredibly slow, quiet record in a period when all of the other bands of the era were making this incredibly riotous grunge music. And here comes this band that has the bravery to sing a 10-minute basically ballad that never breaks into this huge crashing climax.

It just builds and builds and builds, and they did this for albums before they got into a more dynamic rock era. And I think it really speaks to, as you said, her quest for creating something calm, and steady, and beautiful in a world that can be extremely scary and chaotic.

CATHY WURZER: Exactly, so I'm wondering how you thought she changed as an artist over the years.

ANDREA SWENSSON: Well, I was personally really excited to see her sharing more and more of her own songwriting and lyrics and really stepping into that vocalist role, lead vocalist role. She was always present as a harmony vocalist, and her and Alan's voices mixing together is such a core part of Low's sound. But over the years, I feel like that willingness to really share her own experiences in her own voice just grew and grew.

And in the later period, as they got louder and more dynamic and especially in recent years, got very experimental with a lot of electronic production, I just I loved that she was center stage in all of that and really highlighted her experiences in that way.

CATHY WURZER: I know you got to know her a little bit personally, too. Explain what was she like? What kind of a person was she?

ANDREA SWENSSON: Well, I'm from Northern Minnesota, too, and I feel like I just had this instant familiarity with her. And I really enjoy being around her. She has an extremely dry wit and just kind of a stoic personality, and she and I shared kind of a tendency towards dark gallows humor that we immediately bonded over.

And I just I found her to be so warm, and I know that she played such a huge role for so many people in Duluth and around the world, especially women in the music industry. She was an incredible supporter of other women artists, gave advice, played that mentorship role, and was really a pillar in Duluth.

CATHY WURZER: So you know that I have Duluth roots, and I know you grew up just South of Duluth, right? About 45 minutes South of Duluth? So--

ANDREA SWENSSON: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: You're pretty familiar with that whole Twin Ports area, and it has a heck of a music scene. So let's talk about Low's impact on the Twin Ports and the musicians there, too.

ANDREA SWENSSON: Absolutely, I mean, their success and then their dedication to staying rooted in Duluth has had an enormous impact on that area culturally. I don't even know if we could properly quantify it at the moment because it's still unfolding, but I know that they've played that role of being mentors for so many musicians like I said but also just being able to reinvest in their own community.

The fact that they've recorded two of their many albums at Sacred Heart Church, this beautiful venue that has been renovated over time and taken over as this beautiful cultural space, to have that pride in their community and to shine that light on it with the platform that they have as such well-respected artists, it's just so beautiful.

CATHY WURZER: Well speaking, of well-respected artists, my gosh, I mean, Robert Plant covered two of their songs. In fact, I thought it was lovely that he paid tribute to covering two other Low songs Sunday night in his concert in Glasgow, "Monkey" and "Everybody's Song" in Mimi's honor. So I mean, their impact really radiated across the world.

ANDREA SWENSSON: Absolutely, I mean, Sleater-Kinney was posting about watching them just this past summer at Rock the Garden and being absolutely in awe of her talent. Charlie Parr, another very well-respected Duluth artist, I know that he was paying tribute to her in his concert that evening. You could just go on and on about all of the love that has poured out. I know Alan posted from the Low Twitter account yesterday that the love has been perfect and overwhelming, which I think is a good way to put it.

CATHY WURZER: Say, I want to play music because I bet Mimi would love to have us do that. Obviously, Lake Superior was such a key part of their music. We're going to listen to "Disappearing," a song they released last year.

[MUSIC - LOW, "DISAPPEARING"]

LOW: (SINGING) Somewhere out on the ocean, across the waves that rise and fall deep beyond imagination, some kind of madness I don't know. Every--

CATHY WURZER: I think we might have lost Andrea Swensson there for just a moment. Say, Andrea, what does this song say to you about their music?

ANDREA SWENSSON: Oh, it's so representative to me of what they do for other people and the way that they perceive the world and describe their experiences to others. I talked to them about this theme when I visited them up in Duluth of living next to this kind of foreboding body of water that just stretches out into the distance and feeling simultaneously threatened by it and also inspired by its magnitude, and its vastness, and how that's kind of the void that they just are constantly living next to, and navigating.

And I really do feel like their music has helped so many people who are also confronting that void to feel less alone, to feel like there's a way back to the shore, and I think that their lyrics, and the way that they present themselves, and the way that their songs unfold can be incredibly comforting. Even though they're not, maybe, like a traditionally happy pop song, it's something that really resonates with this deeper part of the human experience in a way that I think you have to be so musically genius to be able to do.

CATHY WURZER: Say, before you go, what's a lasting mental image you'll have of Mimi Parker?

ANDREA SWENSSON: Oh, Mimi Parker, I mean watching her perform next to Alan and just being that steady, stoic, graceful presence as he is running around the stage going nuts on his guitar, and she's just there keeping the beat, and holding it all down. I think I'll just always picture her that way in my mind of this kind of anchor that pulls the whole universe together.

CATHY WURZER: Nice. Andrea Swensson, it's been great talking to you. Thank you so much.

ANDREA SWENSSON: Thank you, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Andrea Swensson is a freelance music journalist. She has a lovely essay about Mimi. You can read it at tinyletter.com/slingshotannie. Funeral services for Mimi by the way are Thursday in Duluth. Thanks for listening to "Minnesota Now," here on MPR News.