Grouper
Ruins
31 October 2014
Kranky
3.5 stars out of 5
Ruins is the tenth
LP by Oregon-based Liz Harris, who records ambient music under the moniker of
Grouper. The record sees Harris stripping away her usual layers of tape loops
and delays, leaving just the piano and her voice on most tracks. Her songs seem
to hang like dust caught in the sunlight cutting through the empty rooms of an
abandoned house. It’s difficult to imagine music that could be more desolate
and distant while still being produced by such organic and human origins.
This isn’t ambient in the sense of the abstraction of Music for Airports, and it’s about as
far from Lifeforms as one could
imagine while still technically being in the same genre. This is ambient music
that makes no immediate demands of your attention, instead lurking in the
background and oozing into your skull without you realizing it, changing
everything you think and feel without you being conscious of it. Ruins is constructed of proper songs,
with very non-abstract, structured piano parts and recognizable vocal refrains,
but played in such a way as to seem like an almost inaudible hum. This is the
sound of frost forming on the windows of your life.
reviewed by Richard Krueger
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