Grouper – Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill Review
I know I like to review a lot of soft, ambient music. But aside from Paavoharju’s Laulu Laakson Kukista, which would be in my top five of 2008, Grouper’s work Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill (an extraordinarily Sysiphean title, if there ever was one) would take the cake for great recent discoveries in that region.
Grouper is the moniker of beguiling Portland, Oregon artist Liz Harris, the crux of whose music seems to reside in the complex relationships between the surfaces and structures of her songs. The former presents the listener a turbid ambiance below whose dense atmosphere resides the structure. These do not shy so far away from pop in the end, but always avoid the verse-chorus phenomenon. Meanwhile, over a backdrop of softly plucked guitars and reverbed pianos, the voice soars.
At first, I was reluctant to compare Liz Harris with the singer of the Cocteau Twins; others seem to be too fond of the link, and my deep love for the Twins and their singer’s voice first led me to exclaim: “not every ethereal female vocalist is Liz Fraser!” After a few listens, however, the album offers several points of comparison: the harmonies from “Stuck,” are not unlike some of Fraser’s early work, and Harris’ voice, like Fraser’s, sometimes veers towards lilting and glossolalia. In fact, the vocals are the strongest suit of the album, always beautiful, like a pair of caged panthers, never dominating, but you know they could.
“When we fall” sounds a lot like Low or Beach House, or maybe even like some of MBV’s softer sounds from Strawberry Wine. “Fishing Bird (Empty Gutted In The Evening Breeze)” is the one song which comes closest to being a pop song, a single or whatever. It’s essentially a moody folk track, featuring layers of ambient vocals, oohing-aahing on one level and mouthing incomprehensible lyrics on another, fading in and out. It adds to the fact the songs on the album all flow into each other, thusly creating the impression of continuity.
I could go on, but really, this is a fantastic album, and I’m really glad to have heard it before the year’s end. I’d give it an 8.0 for sure, out of 10.
Grouper – Fishing Bird (Empty Gutted in the Evening Breeze)
Grouper – I'm Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
Grouper – When We Fall
Tags: album
