GROUPER "Way Their Crept" --- CONTACT

^^real talk. 'Dead Deer' is on my top ten list of the year, but I don't know what she looks like (if looks are what's implied). And well, imagining the vocals as coming from a he, well that's just silly.

btw, I wasn't quoting that as in "I agree with this", I was quoting that as in http://i44.tinypic.com/2mhvo8j.jpg

I want to say something about how this album unfolds it's pleasures like a flower, at about the same speed, without it sounding dirty.

Possibly the most gorgously intimate and non "produced" sounding thing I've heard all year too. She might as well be in the room.

This goes down well with a copy of Chris Ware's graphic novel The Smartest Kid on Earth and my Mom's fried boneless fish.

If this was a dude, you wouldn't care

Plenty of us care about Sonic Boom!

I picked this up on a whim today from amazon's mp3 store, where it's on sale for $1.99. It's remarkably gorgeous!

by "this" I mean the Dragging a Dead Deer album

Deeply amused by "fart alert"

That's a damn good price (I paid $14.99 retail) and almost makes me want to switch over to buying in digital format... but not really. xpost

That's exactly my sentiment, ilxor. But if a crazy low price like that leads to more people getting into her music, it's all for the better. She deserves it.

Baffling, pointless review on Tinymixtapes of the live show:

The show is sold out, but most fans are waiting to pile in after the opening act, Grouper — a one-woman showcase of bullshit. Imagine Enya making airport symphonies for hipsters. I try to salvage something from the fuzzy reverb and her long, lonely wails, but I can’t stop picturing her masturbating in front of a full-length mirror. Self-indulgence, indeed.

...but you write for tinymixtapes.com

ugh.

...but you write for tinymixtapes.com

Really? That's news to me!

if you're going to choose such an ambiguous username...

Hahaha, no no, that was meant as a response to the reviewer, for some reason. I saw my comment this morning and wondered what the hell I was talking about, because I don't really have any beef with tinymixtapes.com.

That AOL sonned thread has me thinking about who I do and do not have beefs with today.

it's kinda weird with reviews like that where you can't tell if the reviewer is trying to be funny... or if they're just trying to come up with the most awe-inspiring humorless zings to satisfy their explosive rage at the act in question.

I don't really mind Enya as a reference (Enya is pretty awesome imo tho) and I have been digging pretty heavily on Dead Deer for the last couple weeks.

Enya making airport symphonies for hipsters is the kind of stuff my friends say about the downtempo balearic cheeze i listen to. it kind of goes hand in hand with "elevator music for grad students", a term which used to bug me but i think i'm ok with it know

Hahaha, no no, that was meant as a response to the reviewer, for some reason.

Ah, makes sense now. I laughed out loud. Nice one.

WAY THEIR CREPT and DRAGGING A DEAD DEER are two of my favorite records right now. Is there any other stuff out there like this? Melodic, atmospheric, experimental, droning, and emotional?

this album is kinda staggered by the one two punch of heavy water and stuck

dead deer obv

I really wish we could edit the title of this thread!

Video for HOLD THE WAY

http://www.thefader.com/2009/10/07/video-grouper-hold-the-way/

Should have mentioned I saw her last month as the final act of the On Land festival. Entrancing, mesmerizing, etc -- if a band like School of Seven Bells is (mostly) about shoegaze as propulsion and pop, Grouper is (mostly) about it as immersion and flow.

Gooooorgeous live set over at the free music archive http://freemusicarchive.org/curator/WFMU/blog/ATP-NY_2009_Grouper_MP3 From ATP last month ...

saw her columbia university when she was in NY for ATP. was great. loved the swirls of white noise running through the whole set.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to splash out and see her on Sunday, based on these last few comments. Anybody disagree with the decision?

Glasgow then? See you there!

Didn't know there were UK/Euro dates! Would love to see her live. Don't think I can make any of them, sadly, but I'll have to think about it.

I have fallen in love with (mp3s of) her tour split 7" from last year with City Center and it's totally out of print, alas. Anyone know if there is a tour release this time round, so I can act more promptly?

Are the new myspace tracks "Hold The Way" and "Vessel" available to download anywhere?

(just noticed Vessel EP coming out in Late 2009)

she had this 7" when I saw her but not the city center split:

http://www.discogs.com/Grouper-He-Knows-He-Knows-He-Knows/release/1771400

as a 7"? I bought that from her as a 3" CD.

yep, as a 7"

Went to see her play on Friday night. It was pleasant if unremarkable, she only played for 40 minutes too.

I don't get that complaint. Forty minutes is a perfectly reasonable amount of time for a set, imo.

if you only have 1 album and only charge a fiver then maybe

Wasn't really a complaint, more of an observation. It was actually a double headline show with some noise dude, tickets were 12.50. It was BYOB though so worked out cheap enough.

doesn't she have three albums?

Has a Grouper / Julianna Barwick tour happened yet? Seriously would be an awesome double bill.

Great live set from London in Nov 2009 available to download free here: http://milesofsmiles.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=548002

i wonder if this dude ever interviewed grouper

I missed this news:

Grouper to release two new albums
http://www.factmag.com/2011/01/21/grouper-to-release-two-new-albums/

“The process of making these albums reacquainted me with what I want to explore in music,” she continues. “Friction, exploration of something large and outside of me, describing and traveling to intangible objects and places, unseen movements and connections between people and spaces. Songs that move on their own, that have an autonomous monstrous quality, songs from another world.”

A I A, TWO PART VINYL, SELF RELEASE, APRIL 11th, 2011. Vinyl can be ordered through Mississippi Records, digital downloads will be available as of the 4/11/2011. CONSISTS OF:
-DREAM LOSS, FULL LENGTH 12", GR-006A.
-ALIEN OBSERVER, FULL LENGTH 12", GR-006B.
**Mississippi is no longer taking orders for this. If folks are still wanting vinyl (digital will be widely available, I have a direct agreement with a distributor) this summer than will repress**

aw man. i hope this is gonna be in stores, and stuff, on wax.

ahhhhhhh annoying

sux

I like that she's releasing the stuff on FLAC. I won't pay for mp3s, and the vinyl is just too hard to get a hold of.

she is actually really righteous about re-pressing her LPs, which seems kinda unusual now. like i saw her a while back and was psyched to pickup dragging a deer ..., which i'd figured was one of those things i'd never get because i slept on it in the first place. there's a note inside saying it's pressing three. so it's cool that the vinyl is gettable and isn't going to disappear. hopefully some of this has been ordered by stores, anyhow, i can't really tell.

It's a miracle I nabbed that Paradise Valley 7" back when that came out because recently the special editions of her releases are scooped up as soon as they drop! I was lucky though, because when that 7" was gone it was gone. At least I could still get "normal" versions of these more recent offerings.

yo this is terrific

i like jefre cantu-ledesma a lot but sometimes it feels like he sands the rough edges down a little too far, liz adds a little texture back

^^^ same

they are a very good duo, sounds and methods that work well and reveal new things in each other's music

To be fair to Jefre his albums generally all sound a bit different, some rougher than others.

this is pleasant

i figure i should dig more into cantu-ledesma at some point, i liked on the echoing green a few years back, especially "a song of summer" which was an incredible shoegaze epic. no idea where to go from there though

saw her play last night -- my first time ever seeing her -- at a sold out theater in portland last night, maybe 150 people total, most everyone seated. while it mostly blended together song to song, i definitely picked out "alien observer", "headache", "living room", and i believe parts of "i'm clean now" and "vanishing point"? she played electric guitar and a mixing board from what I could tell. the visuals were often gorgeous and hypnotic, some unforgettable.

by happenstance i ended up sitting next to some of her friends and she stopped to chat with them just before going onstage, and she introduced herself to me and told me I looked sharp. so i'm good for awhile!

she introduced herself to me and told me I looked sharp. so i'm good for awhile!

whoa, that's awesome! definitely one for the back of the book quote!

i saw grouper once, a few years back in chicago, the athletic association. that was such a lovely night, maybe a slightly larger crowd (200? guessing) but also very intimate, and everyone was so quiet. lovely memories.

yeah it was pin-drop quiet, someone dropped their phone on the floor near the end of the performance and it was like a bomb went off

but even then, i'm sure one of her mics picked up the sound faintly and it softly entered the woozy reverb sound to pleasing effect

I saw her the other night in BK and it was the best I'd ever seen her. I've been trying to find the reworked version she did of "False Horizon" the other night because it blew me away. The only thing i could find is this upload from that same show shot on mini dv but it does the job. truly beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu2NGV1UKxE

starts at 21:08 in case my link loses the timecode

I also saw her there but on Thursday, great show.

someone asked me if helen would tour. i laughed and then became very sad

― flappy bird, Tuesday, September 22, 2015 3:27 PM (seven years ago)

They're touring now! A few dates down the west coast: http://www.groundcontroltouring.com/artists/helen

I live nowhere near but someone taped the first night in Portland last week and put it on D!me, sounds great. A few new songs, so hopefully a new record in the works.

i was at the portland show, it was great, though felt like they oversold tickets at the very small venue. viewing space was shoulder to shoulder packed and there were dozens and dozens of people in the overflow area. nobody in the band spoke a single word or even glanced at the crowd, which is always part of the LH experience. mostly just felt honored to be able to see Helen, felt like spotting a ghost in the daylight.

My last.fm tells me I didn't listen to a single Grouper song last year. Just put Alien Observer on and can sense why: the experience of lockdown is right there in the fabric of the music, like comet tail scintilla, blown back into itself.

After Borges: the pandemic invents its musical precursors.