Review: Grouper - Ruins
By Jordan Matthiass, Contributor
[Kranky; 2014]
Rating: 7/10
Key Tracks: “Made of Air,” “Holding,” “Made of Air”
Liz Harris, who records under the name of Grouper, has always made music tied to certain feelings. So minimalist and abstract are her compositions that one cannot easily digest such without first linking them to other, more familiar ephemera: those of fleeting emotions, irregular moods and distant settings.
Settings are an especially integral component of Ruins. Recorded during a week-long artist residency in Aljezur, Portugal, the album features almost solely voice and piano; sometimes not even that. Many spots of field recording dot the landscape of Ruins, buffering tracks’ beginnings and endings.
Frogs croak and storms rumble in the background of many songs. At one point, a mechanized beep, possibly a timer of some sort, finds its way into “Labyrinth.” Harris continues playing and doesn’t cut the odd noise. It’s not hard to imagine her forlornly shrugging her shoulders, not wanting to put the effort into recutting.
Although there is something phantom about the distant piano work of Ruins and despite being released on Halloween, it’s not as inherently eerie as previous records. It’s simply desolate. Few things come between Harris’ emotions and the listener. There are no intermediary layers to disconnect you from the aching cries of the singer and this is for the best.
More than any other Grouper release, Ruins is an album built upon these emotions of longing. For the first time in Harris’ career, she has stripped away the unending cascade of loops and drones, elements heretofore central to the Grouper identity, to expose a vulnerable and insecure side of herself hidden away by those very same layers of repetition that are so evocative of her work.
On “Holding,” the listener finds a lovelorn Grouper struggling to come to terms with heartache. “I hear you calling and I want to go / Run straight into the valleys of your arms and disappear there,” pleads Harris, falling into an uncharastically romantic (if not also despondent) rut. “Holding” is Grouper’s reminder of the fleeting nature of love and warmth found in others’ arms, dying away into the sounds of rain, or tears, falling heavily.
The thunderstorm closing of “Holding” flows beautifully into the cloudy-skies ambiance of album closer “Made of Air.” This 11-minute thesis refines the emotional sharpness of previous pieces and connects it with the aural fogginess of pre-Ruins Harris. No vocals ever find their way to the fore; one is left to wonder where our beleaguered heroine has gone. Perhaps somewhere past the realm of thunderstorms and car alarm samples?
It would seem so, as “Made of Air” seems to be, indeed, made of air. Only droney hum exists; as it bends and bows, we can only hope that Harris has found the peace she wanted on earlier reflections. After all, this song is a good analog for what disappearing into the arms of your love feels like.
Ruins is certainly a Grouper album, even if it bears little trademarks outside of its quiet nature and constant buzz of analog grain. When critiqued as such, it shines as a marker of growth in songstress Liz Harris’ repertoire, but when taken outside of that context, Ruins means even more. It is a one-of-a-kind look, through the fogged lens of ambient music, at the harrows of love.
