Grouper - Be excited!

Grouper who is in fact just Liz Harris of Portland Oregon, are really beginning to catch my eye. I really enjoyed her 2009 release Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill. I really enjoy a good female vocalist. Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith, Eleanor Friedberger and Hope Sandoval, I guess female vocalists of that sort they just blow my mind. Liz Harris has a similar type of voice and some her vocals give her songs an incredibly ethereal and dream like, floating quality.

She is creating electronic music which for me can make it difficult to accurately compare her work to other artists as I think this genre of electronic music is not yet as developed as say rock music and there is not yet a large history base of artists. I think we are at the early adopting stage with regard to electronic music. Yet the latest album A I A has found me drawing comparisons albeit subtle ones with The Antlers, O'Rang and even Aphex Twin's Select Ambient Works. Grouper lacks the intriguing guitars of the Antlers and it lacks the brilliant touch of Richard David James yet it still contains shades of their influence.

There are other fantastic pieces, the wind in shell noise on the opening track of Dragging A Dead Deer is similar to the end of Wish You Were Here. Invisible, from the same album, shows good variety and calls to mind the dreamy vocals of Vashti Bunyan. The same song also ever so slightly brings to mind the Velvet Underground with Nico album.

I am scrambling here for comparisons to somehow harness and convey how fantastic these two albums are. I generally find when an album reminds me of a number of artists as a result of just a riff or a drum beat, even a sound it means I am taking quite an interest in the album. This, for me, bodes very well I can see these two albums becoming firm favourites of mine.

I would recommend you check out both these albums

3 to listen to from Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill; Invisible, Disengaged and Wind And Snow

3 to listen to from A I A; Atone, Moon Is Sharp and I Saw A Ray