GROUPER "Way Their Crept" --- CONTACT

okay, i chose the early show -- say hello if you see someone roughly 5'6 with a buzzed head

old items getting restocked is great and all but shit i got two email notifications from bandcamp on my phone today saying "New Items from Grouper" and each time I got super excited thinking a new single from a possible upcoming album was on it's way, but no :(

nothing on a new single and/or album (though she's doing a project that will be performed during this year's Unsound), but a very nice interview: https://lovelionmusic.blogspot.com/2017/09/interview-with-liz-harris-of-grouper.html

what i did get to hear of liz last night was lovely . . . but, dearest brooklyn scenesters, why would you go to a grouper show . . . and talk the whole way through it? ugh

― reggie (qualmsley), Sunday, April 17, 2011 9:03 AM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i read this post and immediately knew which show this was

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQO3iISbSqA

fucking crowd sucks

Same thing happened at DARK MOFO in Hobart until someone a few rows from the front turned around and bawled SHUT THE FUCK UP. I love Grouper irrationally, but I often listen to the music at overwhelming volume for the sensory overload feeling, and I was looking forward to being able to lose myself in the live performance. It was beautiful but I kept getting distracted by fuckheads more interested in themselves than the music they'd paid to see, and I couldn't help wishing for a little help from the stage. I understand what's special about a room of hushed people listening to soft music, but if I'm completely honest it feels a little wilful to play that quietly.

I'll get me coat.

I know, she plays very quietly. I saw her in a chapel at UVA two years ago that held 250 people, & even with a completely silent & reverential crowd, it was remarkably quiet in the back. I felt like I was straining to hear during the set.

when i saw her it was a perfect volume, loud & encompassing without being uncomfortable

Thankfully the show the other day here was 1) fantastic 2) had a deathly quiet audience and we were all the happier for it.

Did you recognize any of the material she played? Or was it all one lovely gauzy blur?

I definitely recognised things - maybe 2-3 songs - but often radically rearranged (e.g. Ruins material played as guitar ostinatos, recognised them from lyrics).

also continuous, beautiful projected images behind the stage - thematically matched to what I think about her music, which is like hazy memories of beautiful songs.

she played "holding" from RUINS and "fishing bird" from DRAGGING A DEAD DEER

Fishing Bird???? whoa. that's pretty remarkable. was Holding the guitar arrangement? when I saw her 2 years ago, she opened with Alien Observer and played mostly Ruins stuff like Holding and Labyrinth (complete with microwave beep).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XyJB1qq9zw&

I’ve always wondered are the dark circle under her eyes makeup or she doesn’t sleep that much? In some pictures they look natural but they keep changing size and then in others she doesn’t seem to have them at all.

she did say that the Sleep piece was performed/recorded after a long period of sleeplessness. but i had a friend that had a similar thing, it’s genetic.

her collaborator Paul Clipson has died. they did a lot of amazing work together.

vimeo.com/109943175

Paul Clipson - a criminally unsung luminary of the moving image - has died. His images, layers upon layers of light and energy and feeling has been an inspiration.
Very sad news. pic.twitter.com/3721ZHdLUg

— Scott Barley (@ScottBarleyFilm) February 5, 2018

RIP

when I saw her last year his work was projected above her and it was rather incredible

Likewise, I'm sad that it took this loss for me to find out who'd made those beautiful images.

Hoping for a new album this year.

🙏🙏🙏

btw

The Sound They Make At Night - GROUPER - AIA Dream Loss, Alien Observer POLL

Every time I see this thread pop up I pray that it's new Grouper music getting announced. Ruins was all the way back in 2014!

this all fits in my with my theory that everything that is good has been frozen in time (see stars of the lid)

Didn't she say something at one point about being finished with the Grouper project? (Though before last year's seven inch, I think)

It was in one magazine interview that I heard more talk about than the interview or even quote itself... but I do remember reading the exact quote. It wasn't entirely clear and was probably taken out of context and blown out of proportion and the whole "she's retiring Grouper" bit went thru a game of telephone. having said that, yeah, since 2014 she's only put out 3 songs: the Paradise Valley 7" (recorded in 2012), and "Children," an outtake from Ruins (recorded in 2011). So we haven't even heard anything recorded past 2012.

What year was Helen?

single in 2012, album in 2015. but Helen isn't Grouper.

(gets off ass and Googles it)
right of course flappy, but it might count as "done with Grouper" - so the album came out in 2015 and was recorded across "several years" prior, thus I guess Helen is the most recent Liz Harris work out there?

i'm optimistic she'll come out with something pretty soon. she's played several shows since last june, so it's not like she isn't active

do you all know about Hypnosis Display, from 2014? it barely rung a bell, but it's mentioned on her CV (http://www.repeatingpattern.com/cv.html):

Music Commission- Commissioned by Leeds Opera North to collaborate with film-maker Paul Clipson on a 75 minute film and soundtrack entitled Hypnosis Display to be performed live this Summer in the UK.

the only mention in this thread is by schlump, but here's some quick stuff i tracked down (ie the top 2 google results):

11 minute excerpt: https://vimeo.com/109943175
https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2015/04/07/interview-grouper-and-paul-clipson-discuss-hypnosis-display/

somehow i just totally missed all of that, whenever it happened

this is her mural in portland:

https://i.imgur.com/c15q8X9.jpg

hey i know where that is! i pass it fairly often and never knew it was harris' work, thanks karl!

Oooh I thought Hypnosis Display was in 2012. I got it mixed up with Violet Replacement.

xxp man that is cool, thanks

New album in late April, Grid of Points. Enjoy a song from same:

https://soundcloud.com/kranky/grouper-parking-lot/s-1V3kb

At last.

x-post to ned - posted within 15 minutes of that track being uploaded - damn you're quick

the piano sounds wonderful

I keep an eye on things

Gorgeous. Wonder if this is another piano centric album.

From the promo guff, Liz herself:

Grid Of Points is a set of songs for piano and voice. I wrote these songs over a week and a half; they stopped abruptly when I was interrupted by a high fever. Though brief, it is complete. The intimacy and abbreviation of this music allude to an essence that the songs lyrics speak more directly of. The space left after matter has departed, a stage after the characters have gone, the hollow of some central column, missing.

I love Ruins so I'm not complaining

Not long after recording her 10th album, Ruins, 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 space," impressions of mortality, melody, and the unseen – fleeting beauty, interrupted. Grid Of Points stands as a concise and potently poetic addition to the Grouper catalog.

from Liz Harris:
Grid Of Points is a set of songs for piano and voice. I wrote these songs over a week and a half; they stopped abruptly when I was interrupted by a high fever. Though brief, it is complete. The intimacy and abbreviation of this music allude to an essence that the songs lyrics speak more directly of. The space left after matter has departed, a stage after the characters have gone, the hollow of some central column, missing.

Now I did post the second half of that. :-D

Ha, sorry Ned, don’t know how I missed that. I’m waiting til I get home tonight to pre-order. Hopefully it’s not a 500 copy limited edition that’s already sold out

The special edition is already sold out

I discreetly hope that one day Grouper does a faceplant and releases a real turd and all of us are shaking our fists at the $30 trash we all pre-ordered

So this was recorded years ago too? "Not long after recording Ruins"... 2011? 2012?

I've listened to the song once & need to listen again but first impression: the chord progression is really similar to something on Ruins (either Call Across Rooms or the outtake released last year Children), and the vocals are much clearer and sit really high in the mix.

Very excited though

I don't care for the new song! still excited tho