Grouper: Coos from the Ether Clouds

I'm not sure how I've made it this far without doing a post on Grouper, the musical guise of Portland dreamscape artist Liz Harris. Having first stumbled upon her haunting collaboration with Xiu Xiu, Creepshow, I haven't followed closely enough her series of releases on the venerable Type Records.

Fred (City Center) played a show with her not long ago, and reported back that it was his "new favorite sound," describing her set thusly: "kind of like a long, uneasy exhale before you tell someone the worst news imaginable or that you gotta go even though you love them so much." That about sums it up.

Her latest, Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, is full of gorgeously devastating washes of strums and drones and her heartbreaking vocal intimations. The noise quotient is turned down a tad from her earlier stuff, and something that sounds like dream-pop is emerging from a distant AM static.

"Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping" by Grouper (download):