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| Grouper |
Liz Harris (Grouper)
Grouper is the solo project of American
musician, artist and producer Liz Harris. She has been releasing
material on her own label and other independent labels since 2005. Grouper
released the critically acclaimed Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
in 2008, followed by five more records, including a two-part album, A I A,
and the piano-led album Ruins. Her eleventh album, Grid Of
Points was released on April 27, 2018. On March 8, 2018, the song Parking
Lot from the forthcoming album was released via her BandCamp.
She has collaborated with a number of other
artists, including Xiu Xiu, Jesy Fortino (Mirrorring),
Roy
Montgomery, The Bug, Lawrence
English (Slow Walkers), and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma (Raum).
History
Harris was born in Northern California and grew up
around the San Francisco Bay area. She grew up in a Fourth Way
commune there which was inspired by the philosophy of George
Gurdjieff. The community was known as "The Group", which
would later serve as some inspiration for the moniker Grouper. According to
Harris, the kids called each other and the parents 'groupers' sort of as a
defiance. She says: "It was us making our own identities inside a pretty
controlled environment, and sort of lashing back maybe... When I had to think
of a name I felt annoyed at nothing sounding right. I wanted something that
referenced me without referencing 'Me.'" According to her, she "felt
like the music was at its barest just a grouping of sounds, and I was just the
grouper."
After finishing college, Harris briefly moved to Los Angeles,
where she worked with Mayo Thompson at Patrick Painter. Harris is now
based in Oregon. Harris’ first album was 2005’s
Grouper, a self-released full-length CD-R, followed later that
year by Way Their Crept on Free Porcupine (re-released in 2007 on Type
Records). In 2006 she released a single (He Knows),
one album, called Wide, and a collaboration with Xiu Xiu
entitled Creepshow. Harris made available new material steadily through
the years, and continued to collaborate with various artists such as Roy Montgomery
and Xela.
Musical style
During her days as a part of a Fourth Way
commune, Harris' primary sources for discovering music were limited. With a
little help from her parents, whose musical tastes were eccentric and
divergent, she discovered Eastern European folk and the American
avant-pop band Talking Heads. Through her father, who himself
was a composer, she would later discover contemporary classical and early music.
In 2008, when she released Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill,
Pitchfork compared it to classic ethereal
releases from the British label 4AD, drawing comparisons to Cocteau Twins
and early His Name Is Alive. The Portland Mercury described some songs
from the album, such as "Wind and Snow" and "Stuck",
sonically reminiscent of the Renaissance period composers Gesualdo
and Monteverdi.
LIVING ROOM (GROUPER COVER)
I'm looking for the place the spirit meets the skin
can't figure out why that places feels so hard to be in
we're all of us at this ill-fitting party
busy pretending to relate
and it's getting harder and harder to fake
acting like everything's in its place
[Streaming & Download]
(((source)))
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