Grouper

Liz Harris, the artist known as Grouper, has worked closely with film since she began performing live, both her own and other people's: a collaboration of nearly ten years with the late Paul Clipson, and several live projects with Dicky Bahto and Takashi Makino. Music For Two Films About Water, released under her own name on her longtime label Kranky, gathers two recent scores for short films, each an exploration of water, built from mercurial layers of Mellotron, tape loops, Wurlitzer and field recordings.

'Untitled (from We Exhale)' was written for the film by Tanja Engelberts, which takes the point of view of the Rhône itself and traces how centuries of damming, channelling and industrial pollution have reduced a living river to a hydraulic object, asking what a poisoned river sounds like when it exhales. 'Untitled (from Constellation)' scores Makino's Constellation, in which images appear and dissolve in watery textures and remain abstract until the end, like stars joined to make a story: fantasy and reality merging in an oceanic, lucid dream.

Two long pieces between literal, improvised and impressionistic translations of the theme, close to the slow, submerged side of Grouper's records.