Matt Berninger (The National) with Alan Sparhawk (Low)

This week's Talkhouse Podcast is kind of a dream episode for me, because I managed to wrangle two of my favorite songwriter/performer/lyricists ever into a conversation, Matt Berninger and Alan Sparhawk.

Sparhawk first came to my attention way back in the early ‘90s with his band Low. Over the course of 30-ish years, he and his wife, Mimi Parker, created an almost indescribably stunning body of work. The early days were characterized by slow, spare, minimalist songs, but over the decades, Low blossomed in a hundred beautiful ways, from stark, almost confrontational music made with Ste...