Grouper
Grouper is the solo project for electro-acoustic ambient/noise musician Liz Harris, of Portland, Oregon. Harris' music is a mixture of softly-strummed guitar, Wurlitzer keys, and delicate vocals. Reverb and tape delay effects are used widely throughout Harris' recordings.
Grouper is the solo project for electro-acoustic ambient/noise musician Liz Harris, of Portland, Oregon. Harris' music is a mixture of softly-strummed guitar, Wurlitzer keys, and delicate vocals. Reverb and tape delay effects are used widely throughout Harris' recordings.
Shade
Liz Harris's 12th album is a heart-melting anthology of songs written over the last 15 years. A mixture of 'Dragging A Dead Deer...' emotional rawness and 'AIA' -style tape-dubbed sonic fog, it's a timely reminder of why she's one of the crucial underground voices of the era. When Harris's early Grouper material began to emerge thru the cracks in the wall of wyrd folk CDRs and hand-made cassette tapes, we could already sense it was something different. There was a bare quality to it that set it…
A I A : Alien Observer
**2019 small repress on Kranky** The tools Liz Harris uses to make music as Grouper tend to be pretty basic: piano, guitar, synths, drones, hiss, and lots of reverb. If you've been following along with the twists and turns of noisy ambient music these last few years, this collection of elements may sound familiar, possibly bordering on cliché. But it's all in how you fit the pieces together. Despite sharing characteristics with a lot of other current music, Harris' has a distinctive sound that s…
A I A : Dream Loss
'This sound / synapse transposition is as haunting as it is beautiful -- surely Grouper's best.' --Tiny Mix Tapes. 'If past Grouper releases have inhabited abyssal trenches and damp backwoods, here Liz Harris takes us journeying across constellations and stars. Two of the most beguiling albums of the year, exquisitely realized and singularly evocative.' --The Quietus. 'This music feels both spacey and expansive and also oddly intimate and grounded, the work of someone who has mastered her tools …
After Its Own Death / Walking in a Spiral
**CD Edition** Grouper’s Liz Harris quietly released this album of primordial soundscapes a few weeks ago under the new Nivhek alias, initially released in a private edition that vanished almost as quickly as it was announced, After its own death / Walking in a spiral towards the house is presented here in a beautiful second edition on Superior Viaduct's imprint W.25TH.** Opaque assemblages of Mellotron, guitar, field recordings, tapes and broken FX pedals by Pacific Northwest artist Liz Harris,…
Grid of Points
Not long after recording her 10th album, Ruins, Grouper (Liz Harris) traveled to Wyoming to work on art and record music. She found herself drawn towards the pairing of skeletal piano phrasing with spare, rich bursts of vocal harmony. A series of stark songs emerged, minimal and vulnerable, woven with emotive silences. Inspired by the idea that something is missing or cold, the pieces float and fade like vignettes, implying as much as they reveal. She describes them as small texts hanging in spa…
Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
Brand new edition of Grouper's breakthrough 2008 album which has been out of print on all physical formats for the last few years* Here's what we had to say about the album when it first came out on Type 5 years ago: "With the label's hiatus well and truly over, Type Records follows up Peter Broderick's amazing 'Float' with a brand new album of midnight Shoegazer classics from Portland's Liz Harris - and it really is one of the most special albums you'll hear this year. While the filtered, tape-…
The Man Who Died In His Boat
2016 reissue. Following a series of impossible-to-obtain releases for her own Yellowelectric imprint and a CD compilation of her gorgeous 'A I A' set, Liz Harris seems to have settled with Kranky who are re-releasing her classic Type album 'Dragging a Dead Deer..' and this new album of previously unreleased material drawn from the same period: 'The Man Who Died In His Boat'. It's not so hard to believe but we'll say this straight away - the material on this new set is just jaw-dropping, a …
Ruins
"Ruins was made in Aljezur, Portugal in 2011 on a residency set up by Galeria Zé dos Bois. I recorded everything there except the last song, which I did at mother's house in 2004. Iʼm still surprised by what I wound up with. It was the first time I'd sat still for a few years; processed a lot of political anger and emotional garbage. Recorded pretty simply, with a portable 4-track, Sony stereo mic and an upright piano. When I wasnʼt recording songs I was hiking several miles to the beac…
AIA
This is the first CD issue of Grouper's 2011 self released two part album subtitled 'Dream Loss' and 'Alien Observer,' comprised of songs written and recorded over the last four years. A chronological order informs the thematic trajectory of the dual release. 'Dream Loss' is the first album and is a collection of older songs, while 'Alien Observer' is mostly made of newer songs. Each is meant to stand solidly on its own, and also as a satellite in the other's system, subjects on either side of t…