Having augmented the band with 2 extra members (Shiggins on guitar, and myself on keys) early in the summer to fully support the "Paths" material, recording the V2 demo in mid-july was the next natural step: this was our first representation of material written with and for the 5-piece lineup. Although these were the only 2 songs we wrote that summer, they showed a significant musical and lyrical growth over earlier material, and really were the first songs to feature the "signature" Lowfive sound. Although these are the 2 longest Lowfive/Softer songs ever to grace our catalogue, the whole process was relatively short, lasting just over 1 week.

As we'd become pretty familiar with the recording process by this time, so we were able to bypass a lot of the same hassles of earlier sessions. I think by this time we had all of our own equipment, including an abandoned house in a rural area that enabled us to practice and record late into the night. Summer 2002 saw a looooooot of practicing, and i think it comes through on the V2 demo. While the quality is not astounding, i think it's a moderate step forward from the "Paths" sound, and the performances have improved by leaps and bounds. The drumming is a lot more consistent, thanks to our addition of a click track to the process, and the vocals are a lot stronger as a result of muchos practicing with vocals. These were the first recording sessions for myself and sean, and i think we both fell right into line. I obviously had a lot of experience from the other end of things, and sean higgins probably actually ended up with something to be proud about, when compared to the rest of his miserable life. This is odd though, as Sean Higgins was actually on one of his convenient vacations during this week, so Gabe had to lay down his parts for him. For anybody who didn't already know, Sean Higgins is a weasel... and not the cool kind like Pauly Shore.

Anyhow, the end result was probably the best recording we'd done up until this time. We'd gotten the process and the performance down to a science; really all that was holding us back at this point was the lack of better equipment (like the ability to multi-track drums). V2 also marks the first release where i was able to track and mix (not to mention master) the whole thing with a single program, which hastened the post-recording processes. All in all, this got us really excited to record again, and rushed us into trying another record before the end of the summer.

We made about 100 copies of this on 2 different formats; half on blackback CDRs, and half on CDR minis. Artwork was relatively simple and corny; a V2 stenciled in white on a flat black disc. The V2 didn't really have any specific meaning, although we came up with the following explanations: V = five in roman numerals, this was the 2nd release by Lowfive. V2 could also be interpreted as version 2, which worked because this was the 2nd incarnation of the band (although this particular version of the band would later be dubbed v1.2). Most copies were gone by the end of the summer, and the recordings were then made available online.

close journal ↑

01. Lie Down With Dogs	08:24
02. The Atlantic Ocean...	07:16
TOTAL	15:40