GROUPER "Way Their Crept" --- CONTACT

Wow, that's gorgeous.

Would love another Helen LP at some point...

https://www.allmusic.com/album/dragging-a-dead-deer-up-a-hill-mw0001233331

This might be old news but I just realized that Dragging a Dead Deer up a Hill got upgraded to a 5-star rating on Allmusic!

anyone else listening to grid of points?

still struggling to find a way into it, tbh.

after a couple listens there are kinda bright spots in the murk but it might take a little while to really put it together. the length is part of the problem imo, as soon as i settle into the vibe the train sounds start and it's over.

got Grid of Points and have listened all the way thru maybe a dozen times now. i love the bookends - acapella stacked harmonies / flanging train. i like the previously released songs much more in the context of the record. all of the songs are beautiful. but it isn't much more than a companion piece to Ruins, which is fine. it just isn't long enough, also while the songs are great none of them come close to anything on Ruins. if anything Grid of Points reinforces what a masterpiece Ruins is.

anyone recognize the first song here? sounds new to me. similar to headache / i'm clean now but slightly faster. maybe from that batch of material. i saw her a month before this show and she definitely didn't play this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF32TA4WUJQ

the yt comments claim it's an unreleased song titled California

Ok, I finally listened to the rest of the songs for the first time, and yes, they're all great. Not enough have just straight up said "What a graceful voice", and they should. This is peaceful death music, I love it.

I predict I will post about this again on August 3rd of this year, because that's the day I finally get back home. And when I arrive, there's going to be a small pile of her records because I'm going to have to drunkenly order a good half of those LPs and EPs Milton just mentioned. Not the Xiu Xiu one, though.

― Z S, Monday, June 23, 2008 2:26 AM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seeing her next week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZgkmnOXc0g

NY folks please please please go to her 9/12 and 9/17 shows. I think only one of them is sold out. Show in Philly tonight was fantastic. Opened with The Races -> Alien Observer, lots of new stuff, some songs from Grid of Points, DDD, Ruins, and what I'm pretty sure was Cover the Windows and the Walls but with completely different lyrics. The train whistle is the new microwave beep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcp3H93CXVw

and what I'm pretty sure was Cover the Windows and the Walls but with completely different lyrics.

"One song to the tune of another"?

Listening to the recording it is actually CTWATW

Speaking from the other side of the world, Grid of Points is absolutely beautiful music for Christmas morning.

New album! Under a new project name -- Nivhek.

https://grouper.bandcamp.com/album/after-its-own-death-walking-in-a-spiral-towards-the-house

whaaa

“Crying Jar” features Michael Morley, Gabie Strong, and Christopher Reid Martin.

Per the PR guff:

Opaque assemblages of Mellotron, guitar, field recordings, tapes, and broken FX pedals by Pacific Northwest musician Liz Harris, created during and after two contrasting residencies in the Azores, Portugal and Murmansk, Russia, combined with pieces made at home in Astoria, Oregon.

can't waaaaaait to get home from work today!

i love how the track lengths go down to milliseconds

0 - 7:48:544 Cloudmouth
7:48:544 - 8:19:489 blue room
8:17:503 - 11:27:011 Night-walking
11:27:011 -16:41:254 Funeral song
16:41:254 - 26:00:991 Thirteen (version)
26:00:991 - 28:39:125 Crying jar
28:39:125 - 29:29:394 Entry
29:29:394 - 37:33:056 Walking in a spiral towards the house
37:30:846 - end Weightless

Walking in a spiral towards the house

0 - 3:14:509 Night-walking
3:14:509 - 8:37:153 Funeral song
8:37:153 - 12:59:510 Thirteen
12:59:510 - end Walking in a spiral towards the house

also very interesting how the "nightwalking>funeral song>thirteen" sequence is repeated twice (once per LP)

Damn!

can't waaaaaait to get home from work today!

― Karl Malone

otm, although I have a record show to hit first so this will have to wait a bit

sound amazing!

Ordered the double LP sight unseen / sound unheard. Can't wait.

has no one else listened to it yet? of all days where i had to stay 3 hours late at work...

putting it on (aka 'clicking the bandcamp button') now!

also i just remembered that i'm seeing her play next week (for the first time), so hopefully i'll be able to pick this up at the show!

this is very ambient even by her standards, only "Cloudmouth" really resembles her usual work

not really sure what the intention is for Walking In A Spiral Towards the House to be mostly repeats of tracks from After Its Own Death, only track that isn't is the alternate version of "Thirteen"

i haven't made it to the second LP yet, but i was assuming they'd be different versions of the tracks that appeared on the first LP? i'm really enjoying the vibraphones on 'night-walking' and 'funeral song' so far.

they're all the same except "thirteen" which swaps out the guitars on the first LP's version for more of the vibraphones that are everywhere else

oh, bummer! well, i'll cross that road when i get to it (in about 20 minutes)

sounds like you weren't a fan of it, overall? i have to say, i'm really really enjoying the first side of LP1, but i also like super ambient stuff.

but yeah, i could understand the criticism that it's just a bunch of super reverbed out vibraphones. it is that, a lot of the time. i must admit that i played percussion in middle/high school, and i always really enjoyed my time after school, by myself, just holding down the vibraphone pedal and playing lots of chords in a row. i would do that for a really long time, just playing chords and listening to them slowly dissipate. a lot of this kind of brings me back into that happy zone, but it probably wouldn't have that effect on everyone

i think it'll be pretty nice music to fall asleep to but nothing much more than that for me. the second LP being mostly a condensed version of the first is a weird choice but looking as it as "two slightly different versions of the same thing" rather than "one album across two LPs" is how i'm trying to understand it

yeah, i'm listening to the second LP now and i see what you mean. it's kinda weird, because even if i end up preferring the versions of the songs which appear on the second LP, they appear without the context of the other songs that appear on the first LP, which i also enjoy.

re: it being more ambient than her usual work - how close is it to Dream Loss? I ordered the record and am going to wait to listen.

"Cloudmouth" is pretty similar to Dream Loss but a pretty significant part of the album is indeed a lot of super reverbed out vibraphones, without her usual vocals.

I think the "Thirteen" on the second LP might just be a fragment of the longer version on the first? the second LP seems to just collect all the echoey vibraphone tracks together in one place

that's an interesting comparison to make...

it's less distorted than dream loss, more clear, less reverb and echo. the instrumentation is much more limited - most of it is just vibraphones, with occasional guitar. there's not much singing on it, other than the first track and a few seconds at the very end. the tracks run together, so it pretty much plays as one long piece (repeated in abridged form on the second LP). i think it's more ambient in the eno sense of blending into the background. i need to listen to it again, obviously, but i can already imagine that i will play it as music for writing or making stuff.

xp

sounds cool! very curious about her working with vibraphones

i guess, yeah, it is super reverbed out vibraphones. but dream loss (and so much of grouper's music) is SUPER reverbed out, so it seems more direct and clear to me in comparison.

anyone recognize this song?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBE08ybWZ_U

new helen when

wow flappy, that song is gorgeous. sounds kind of like "Water People" but darker

I was at that (incredibly excellent) show. Not my video; glad someone got it.

I had to stop listening to Grouper when I realized how many creeps there are out there whose entire personality consists of “listens to Grouper”

I have yet to meet a Grouper groupie

You are fortunate

lol. they can't all be bad

Only takes a couple to really spoil it! That said, this new album is refreshing in its pivot away from obscurantism-- "Grid Of Points" made me wonder if she was gradually moving toward entire albums of untouched, unprocessed single-take field recordings. Not the case! I don't know if I like this Nivhek thing more or less than the more clouded stuff but it's definitely good good good

the Helen album is really good

Love the Helen album as much as the late 80s early 90s indie pop it resembles

always happy to have new music from Liz but i hope someday we get a new Mirrorring album