behind him. "Low was largely drug-free," he remarked. "That was the first instance in a very long time that I'd gone into an album without anything like that to help me along. I was scared, because I thought that maybe my creativity had to be bound up with drugs – that it enhanced my ability to make music. But that album turned out okay." He also had conflicts with his wife and faced legal problems after firing his manager Michael Lippman; he left the sessions in September 1976 to work on resolving the case. Despite the problems, Visconti recalled that he, Bowie and Eno were working "at their peak". By the end of September, Bowie and Visconti had grown tired of the Château. Bowie was mentally drained; Visconti frustrated by the lack of outside assistance. After recording the wordless vocals for "Warszawa", Bowie, Visconti, Pop and Bowie's assistant Coco Schwab left France for West Berlin. The sessions continued at Hansa Studios. According to Nicholas Pegg and Seabrook, it was not the same "Hansa by the Wall" location where Low would be mixed and "Heroes" would be recorded. At Hansa, the final tracks, "Weeping Wall" and "Art Decade", were completed, as well as vocal overdubs for the Château recordings. Recording continued until early October 1976, and mixing was finished later that month. Songs Low features Bowie's first explorations of electronic and ambient music. Ultimate Classic Rock and Consequence of Sound retrospectively categorised Low as art rock and experimental rock, respectively. Along with its successor "Heroes", the songs on Low emphasise tone and atmosphere, rather than guitar-based rock. German bands like Tangerine Dream, Neu! and Kraftwerk influenced the music. Seabrook considers Neu! the biggest influence on Bowie's new musical direction; he explained that their 1975 album Neu! '75 is, like Low and "Heroes", characterised by a song/instrumental split and contains a song titled "Hero". Ron Hart of The Observer recognised Kraftwerk's Radio-Activity (1975) as an influence, noting that album's harmony of "experimentalism and repetition" as providing the template for Low. Side one consists primarily of short, direct avant-pop song-fragments; side two comprises longer, mostly instrumental tracks. In 1977, Bowie said side one was about himself and his "prevailing moods" at the time and side two is about his musical observations of living in Berlin. Musically, one reviewer characterised side one as a direct extension of Young Americans and Station to Station. Regarding