Part music, part art project MT. LOW release debut mixtape Lost of Love

Lost of Love is a an interesting body of work from an even more interesting group.

MT. LOW are a duo comprised of twin brothers Matt and Will Ritson, and Lost of Love is their debut mixtape formed under unconventional means. The duo came together as MT. LOW during a trip to a church in the Mojave Desert as well as the remote Beatty, Nevada. During that time they documented their entire journey, mainly through the medium of photography which was what initially got them some attention. This attention culminated in world renowned photography magazine Ignant picking up their work and publishing it.

It was during this trip that the musical side of this art project began taking shape but they didn’t get down to recording until getting back from the trip. Their experience of such vast open spaces as well as the abandoned town of Beatty left a profound effect on them. They wanted to not only translate that message across imagery but sonics as well. That is how Lost of Love was born.

Yet even that rather unconventional inspiration process wasn’t the end of MT. LOW taking the unorthodox route. When it came to recording the body of work they didn’t go with the standard studio experience – even down to their collaboration efforts. In their own words the recording process was as follows:

“We began to work separately and then piece by piece, put songs together over e-mail, WhatsApp messages, phone calls…whatever we had at the time, the fidelity didn’t matter as long as were being honest and letting the music fill that physical space between us.“

This allowed for the music to be the means that they properly conversated with, and as such, the project captured the way that the two relate to each other both as individuals and as a duo. This was just one of the many messages they wanted to get across but also exemplifies that for them this is all an extension of the artistic process that they needed to go through to get Lost of Love.

They made their musical debut in early February with ‘Fade (Into View)’ which aptly premiered on FADER. The track both visually and sonically gave the ideal taster of what their approach and musical soundscape would be – experimental. It isn’t one note, it isn’t completely polished, and it definitely isn’t any one thing. The closest comparison that comes to mind for MT. LOW is James Blake but if you know his catalogue you will know that equally doesn’t really narrow things down.

On Lost of Love, this continues. Whilst the project feels cohesive, it clearly mirrors a journey as each track feels like its own soundscape but ones that make sense in their order. It is one of the most artistic albums you will hear and demonstrates that MT. LOW are extremely exciting. The project is structured with song, interlude, song, interlude etc across its 8 track length. Whilst I call some tracks interlude I’m sure they wouldn’t. But for me, some of the tracks do feel like they were necessary steps in leading us between tracks the way interludes would. I do however wish some of those interludes were longer, in particular ‘1989’.

All in all Lost of Love is an impressive debut project. It shows that there is vast potential in MT. LOW, hopefully, potential we will see come to fruition should they choose to stick to making music. It will definitely be interesting to see what they do next as the possibilities are endless. I wouldn’t be completely surprised if the next project they undertook was directing a film, but that’s just my guess. Keep an eye out for more from MT. LOW and you can watch their latest video ‘Salvation’ here.