Aquarius Records: Search Results for Artist: Grouper
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IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion):
Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps "out of print/unavailable" notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock -- or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us -- please email our mailorder department for availability status -- or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.


album cover GROUPER A I A: Alien Observer (Yellow Electric) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Just as ghostly and mystical as her music is, so is the availability of Grouper's records. One moment they're here, but before you can even blink they're out of print. Lately Liz Harris (Grouper) has been releasing her own recordings, but not pressing that many of them when she does. We know she doesn't do so out of a desire to keep things 'limited' but instead it's her humble nature which tends to keep her scope small, even when the truth is there are thousands of people across the globe who have become huge fans of her dreamlike sounds.
The first pressing of these two new Grouper lp's "A I A: Alien Observer" and "A I A: Dream Loss" went out of print so quickly we weren't even able to review them. The thing about these small pressings that bother us is that the only folks really winning, are the eBay speculators selling copies for ridiculous amounts, none of that money ends up in Grouper's hands. So we do hope that in the future she (and the labels she works with) will start pressing more copies as she is the one who deserves to reap the reward of her beautiful creation.
OK, now that our rant is out of the way, we should let you know that although this is a repressing we're not sure how many, if any, more of these we're going to be able to get. What we got, So before we start going on and on about the music you probably should just add this to your cart asap to better your chances of actually ending up with these.
Now on to what really matters - the music on these records. We've gushed and gushed about Grouper so much in the past, and we're going to do it once again because these lp's are utterly gorgeous! While Dragging A Dead Dear, found her starting to really embrace the idea of songs, we love how these lp's blur that focus once again. They're much more about mood, soft focus, hazy dreams, and ethereal exploration. Her voice swirling in and out, and every sound and tone she uses and manipulates with such a mastered ease. We've been listening to these records late at night and early in the morning and whenever we need to come down from the craziness of the world around us. Somehow whenever we play these lp's, everything else just fades away and for a little while all that matters is the soft narcotic rush we feel as the records spin. We can't imagine only getting one of these, as they really do work as companion pieces. Totally beautiful! And sadly, AGAIN, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!!

album cover GROUPER A I A: Dream Loss (Yellow Electric) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Just as ghostly and mystical as her music is, so is the availability of Grouper's records. One moment they're here, but before you can even blink they're out of print. Lately Liz Harris (Grouper) has been releasing her own recordings, but not pressing that many of them when she does. We know she doesn't do so out of a desire to keep things 'limited' but instead it's her humble nature which tends to keep her scope small, even when the truth is there are thousands of people across the globe who have become huge fans of her dreamlike sounds.
The first pressing of these two new Grouper lp's "A I A: Alien Observer" and "A I A: Dream Loss" went out of print so quickly we weren't even able to review them. The thing about these small pressings that bother us is that the only folks really winning, are the eBay speculators selling copies for ridiculous amounts, none of that money ends up in Grouper's hands. So we do hope that in the future she (and the labels she works with) will start pressing more copies as she is the one who deserves to reap the reward of her beautiful creation.
OK, now that our rant is out of the way, we should let you know that although this is a repressing we're not sure how many, if any, more of these we're going to be able to get. What we got, So before we start going on and on about the music you probably should just add this to your cart asap to better your chances of actually ending up with these.
Now on to what really matters - the music on these records. We've gushed and gushed about Grouper so much in the past, and we're going to do it once again because these lp's are utterly gorgeous! While Dragging A Dead Dear, found her starting to really embrace the idea of songs, we love how these lp's blur that focus once again. They're much more about mood, soft focus, hazy dreams, and ethereal exploration. Her voice swirling in and out, and every sound and tone she uses and manipulates with such a mastered ease. We've been listening to these records late at night and early in the morning and whenever we need to come down from the craziness of the world around us. Somehow whenever we play these lp's, everything else just fades away and for a little while all that matters is the soft narcotic rush we feel as the records spin. We can't imagine only getting one of these, as they really do work as companion pieces. Totally beautiful! And sadly, AGAIN, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!!

album cover GROUPER Cover The Windows And The Walls (Root Strata) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally available on cd!
It doesn't really seem possible that the music of Grouper could get any more beautiful, any more majestic and epic, or any more mysterious and dreamlike. No, but what it can do is change, and grow, expand, and subtly alter its shape and timbre, it's coloring and shading, which is what it has been doing, on every single outing, but never so much as on Cover The Windows And Walls. The core of Grouper's sound remains unchanged, dense bleary eyed fields of druggy reverb, thick swirls of blurred vocals, smeared into indistinct melodies, all abstract and shimmery, soft focus and billowy, the musical version of those soft fuzzy grey clouds that fill the sky at twilight. It's still an impossible blend of Arvo Part, Morton Feldman and Skullflower, but the new record sounds a little bit more, well, folky maybe, or perhaps slightly less tripped out. A lot of it has to do with the vocals, which have attained an until now unheard of clarity. Which in no way means you can actually hear the vocals, they are still another gauzy layer in Grouper's blown out soundscape, but, sometimes, they -are- a bit clearer, you can actually pick out words here and there, sometimes even whole lines. Before, if we hadn't been told, we wouldn't necessarily have even known that the main element of Grouper's sound was in fact vocals. They were that indistinct and that drenched in FX. But here, it actually sounds like a singer, singing songs, but just barely, it's almost like listening to some super lonesome stripped down folk, recorded onto a wax cylinder, and then broadcast through a huge speaker mounted at the very bottom of an elaborate cave system, the songs careening back and forth and picking up more and more reverb and echo with every bounce, until they become this blissed out beautiful blur. Thick buzzing single guitar notes spread out into wavery fields of murky muted twang, which wrap themselves serpent like around the equally disembodied vocals. Imagine a field recording of ghosts performing ancient folk songs, a whispery thrum, so barely audible, that it's nearly impossible to capture, but once it is, and the sound is turned up enough to be audible to the human ear, it becomes this gorgeously distorted smear of sound.
What else can we say about Liz Harris and her Grouper project? We've hardly heard anything this beautiful and mysterious ever. EVER!
Absolutely and emphatically recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Cover The Windows And Walls"
MPEG Stream: "Opened Space"
MPEG Stream: "Down To The Ocean"

album cover GROUPER Cover The Windows And Walls (Root Strata) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It doesn't really seem possible that the music of Grouper could get any more beautiful, any more majestic and epic, or any more mysterious and dreamlike. No, but what it can do is change, and grow, expand, and subtly alter its shape and timbre, it's coloring and shading, which is what it has been doing, on every single outing, but never so much as on Cover The Windows And Walls. The core of Grouper's sound remains unchanged, dense bleary eyed fields of druggy reverb, thick swirls of blurred vocals, smeared into indistinct melodies, all abstract and shimmery, soft focus and billowy, the musical version of those soft fuzzy grey clouds that fill the sky at twilight. It's still an impossible blend of Arvo Part, Morton Feldman and Skullfower, but the new record sounds a little bit more, well, folky maybe, or perhaps slightly less tripped out. A lot of it has to do with the vocals, which have attained an until now unheard of clarity. Which in no way means you can actually hear the vocals, they are still another gauzy layer in Grouper's blown out soundscape, but, sometimes, they -are- a bit clearer, you can actually pick out words here and there, sometimes even whole lines. Before, if we hadn't been told, we wouldn't necessarily have even known that the main element of Grouper's sound was in fact vocals. They were that indistinct and that drenched in FX. But here, it actually sounds like a singer, singing songs, but just barely, it's almost like listening to some super lonesome stripped down folk, recorded onto a wax cylinder, and then broadcast through a huge speaker mounted at the very bottom of an elaborate cave system, the songs careening back and forth and picking up more and more reverb and echo with every bounce, until they become this blissed out beautiful blur. Thick buzzing single guitar notes spread out into wavery fields of murky muted twang, which wrap themselves serpent like around the equally disembodied vocals. Imagine a field recording of ghosts performing ancient folk songs, a whispery thrum, so barely audible, that it's nearly impossible to capture, but once it is, and the sound is turned up enough to be audible to the human ear, it becomes this gorgeously distorted smear of sound.
What else can we say about Liz Harris and her Grouper project? We've hardly heard anything this beautiful and mysterious ever. EVER!
Absolutely and emphatically recommended.
This second pressing is WAY limited and already out of print! We got 30 copies, and once these are gone, that'll be it! Pressed on gorgeous swirled black and white vinyl.
MPEG Stream: "Cover The Windows And Walls"
MPEG Stream: "Opened Space"
MPEG Stream: "Down To The Ocean"

album cover GROUPER Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (Type) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill opens with an entirely characteristic yet coy swell of effected elemental smear, crumbling delicately yet forcefully, until giving way to what is, to date, and here is the coy part, Liz Harris' most songwriterly and structured album. As opposed to the rich swaths of drone that up until now defined her sound, Harris has shifted from the abstract towards a more distinct and figurative sound. True to the title, the record unfolds like a sort of mysterious and morbid fairytale, innocent in its clear and elegant melodies, yet creepy and highly abstract in its more droney and sublime interludes. For the most part, her guitar playing is laid bare, removed from the dense fog of effects that typically occlude them. And what we discover is actually a pretty strummy record, with plenty of clean guitar articulation though certainly the aroma of her previous tech heavy approach remains in what is relatively speaking still pretty effected. At times she even reverts back to the gorgeous icey crunchy string attack of some previous efforts. With so much space liberated in the absence of drones, we also get to hear her stunning voice. Furthermore, the occasional audible lyric creeps to the surface, one standout fragment being "Love Is Enormous," a somewhat shockingly affirmative sentiment from an otherwise darkly mysterious and abstract persona. From start to finish Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill lulls you into its graceful murmurings and hypnotic thrumming. An exquisite addition to an already compelling discography. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Disengaged"
MPEG Stream: "Heavy Water/ I'd Rather Be Sleeping"

album cover GROUPER Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (Type) lp 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL!
Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill opens with an entirely characteristic yet coy swell of effected elemental smear, crumbling delicately yet forcefully, until giving way to what is, to date, and here is the coy part, Liz Harris' most songwriterly and structured album. As opposed to the rich swaths of drone that up until now defined her sound, Harris has shifted from the abstract towards a more distinct and figurative sound. True to the title, the record unfolds like a sort of mysterious and morbid fairytale, innocent in its clear and elegant melodies, yet creepy and highly abstract in its more droney and sublime interludes. For the most part, her guitar playing is laid bare, removed from the dense fog of effects that typically occlude them. And what we discover is actually a pretty strummy record, with plenty of clean guitar articulation though certainly the aroma of her previous tech heavy approach remains in what is relatively speaking still pretty effected. At times she even reverts back to the gorgeous icey crunchy string attack of some previous efforts. With so much space liberated in the absence of drones, we also get to hear her stunning voice. Furthermore, the occasional audible lyric creeps to the surface, one standout fragment being "Love is enormous," a somewhat shockingly affirmative sentiment from an otherwise darkly mysterious and abstract persona. From start to finish "Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill" lulls you into its graceful murmurings and hypnotic thrumming. An exquisite addition to an already compelling discography. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Disengaged"
MPEG Stream: "Heavy Water/ I'd Rather Be Sleeping"

album cover GROUPER Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (Grouper Records) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The THIRD repress of this exquisite album on vinyl. If you missed it the last two times, don't expect this one to last any longer! The only difference is the black & white artwork, but the musical content is the same. Here's what we said way back when...
Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill opens with an entirely characteristic yet coy swell of effected elemental smear, crumbling delicately yet forcefully, until giving way to what is, to date, and here is the coy part, Liz Harris' most songwriterly and structured album. As opposed to the rich swaths of drone that up until now defined her sound, Harris has shifted from the abstract towards a more distinct and figurative sound. True to the title, the record unfolds like a sort of mysterious and morbid fairytale, innocent in its clear and elegant melodies, yet creepy and highly abstract in its more droney and sublime interludes. For the most part, her guitar playing is laid bare, removed from the dense fog of effects that typically occlude them. And what we discover is actually a pretty strummy record, with plenty of clean guitar articulation though certainly the aroma of her previous tech heavy approach remains in what is relatively speaking still pretty effected. At times she even reverts back to the gorgeous icey crunchy string attack of some previous efforts. With so much space liberated in the absence of drones, we also get to hear her stunning voice. Furthermore, the occasional audible lyric creeps to the surface, one standout fragment being "Love Is Enormous," a somewhat shockingly affirmative sentiment from an otherwise darkly mysterious and abstract persona. From start to finish Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill lulls you into its graceful murmurings and hypnotic thrumming. An exquisite addition to an already compelling discography. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Disengaged"
MPEG Stream: "Heavy Water/ I'd Rather Be Sleeping"

album cover GROUPER He Knows (IOG) 7" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Originally released as a super limited 3" cd-r on the Yellow Swans' Jyrk label, looooong out of print. Now finally reissued, on vinyl, on Liz Grouper's own IOG label. And probably out of print in 2 seconds (or less!) as well.
The sound of Grouper is a gloriously thick and fuzzy swirl, equal parts Arvo Part, Morton Feldman, Skullfower and all manner of drift and drone. Dense smears of processed vocals and mumbled guitars, all so heavily affected they become indistinct blurs, drifting fuzzy drones. He knows took everything we loved about Way Their Crept and made those sounds MORE: darker, denser, thicker, prettier. Three songs, ten minutes... but what it lacks in length, it makes up for in depth. The first track could of come straight off of Grouper's Way Their Crept full length. Disembodied vocals hover and drift, guitars (are they guitars?) rumble and murmur and shimmer and hover, not so much an instrument as some sort of musical spirit. The vocals, the guitars, the sounds Grouper produce are like wraiths, floating like wisps of smoke, drifting in and around and through each other, a thick cloudy soundscape, warm and enveloping, pulsing and reverberating, an indistinct blur, lovely but ineffable.
The second track is like chamber music recorded at the bottom of the sea, listening to it after it has bubbled up to the surface, warm and warbly and murky and so lovely. Melodies are nothing but streaks of barely there sound, like sunbeams filtered through the prism of swirling seawater. The final track sounds like a hymn, but muffled and indistinct. Imagine laying in a field outside a small stone chapel, blankets wrapped tight around your head to stave off the cold, the warm sounds of the church drift across the icy ground, the sounds barely making it through your wool shroud and into your ears, but what does make it, sounds warm and safe and beautiful. So good.
This 7" is crazy limited, we sold out of the first batch we got in a matter of days, and that's without even reviewing it or listing it on the website, so don't expect these to be around for very long (sorry)...

album cover GROUPER He Knows (Jyrk) 3" cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We were totally gaga for Grouper's Way Their Crept cd from last year. So much so we made it Record of the Week. A more aQ record we couldn't have imagined, a gloriously thick and fuzzy swirl, equal parts Arvo Part, Morton Feldman, Skullfower and all manner of drift and drone. Dense smears of processed vocals and mubled guitars, all so heavily affected they became indistinct blurs, drifting fuzzy drones. We've been anxiously awaiting more, and were thrilled to discover this new 3" cd-r on the Yellow Swans' Jyrk label. The good news is that it takes everything we loved about Way Their Crept and made it more, daker, denser, thicker, prettier. The bad news is it was limited to 130 copies of which we only managed to get 20. And the rest are sold out, so after these are gone we won't be getting any more.
He Knows is very short, three songs, ten minutes. But what it lacks in lenght, it makes up for in depth. The first track could of come straight off of Way Their Crept. Disembodied vocals hover and drift, guitars (are they guitars?) rumble and murmur and shimmer and hover, not so much an instrument as some sort of musical spirit. The vocals, the guitars, the sounds Grouper produce are like wraiths, floating like whisps of smoke, drifting in and around and through each other, a thick cloudy soundscape, warm and enveloping, pusling and reverberating, an indistnict blur, lovely but ineffable.
The second track is like chamber music recorded at the bottom of the sea, listening to it after it has bubblrd up to the surface, warm and warbly and murky and so lovely. Melodies are nothing but streaks of barely there sound, like sunbeams filtered through the prism of swirling seawater. The final track sounds like a hymn, but muffled and indistinct. Imagine laying in a field outside a smalll stone chapel, blankets wrapped tight around your head to stave off the cold, the warm sounds of the church drift across the icy ground, the sounds barely making it through your wool shroud and into your ears, but what does make it, sounds warm and safe and beautiful. So good.
Limited to 130 copies and already OUT OF PRINT! We have the last 20, once these are gone they are GONE!
MPEG Stream: "One"

album cover GROUPER Hold / Sick (Room40) 7" 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This one definitely doesn't need much of a review, it's a super limited tour single from Liz Harris, aka Grouper, it features two brand new and EXCLUSIVE tracks, it's lovely and ethereal and spacey and dreamy (of course), it's already sold out and out of print, and we got less than 10 copies, and will NOT ever be able to get more. Odds are you don't need much of a description, fans will definitely want this, even with the steep price tag, but rest assured, it's another fantastic collection of hazy guitar swirl, lush atmospheric shimmer, disembodied reverbed vocal coo, shoegazey sonic swirl, a little bit of extra buzz and distortion all but obscuring the fragile vox on the second, track, but for the most part it's all gauzy and ethereal and ephemeral and abstract and hauntingly gorgeous, and for Grouper obsessives, most likely essential. Too bad we got so few...
Housed in nice thick covers with super striking black and white artwork, includes a Xeroxed insert with a download code too.

album cover GROUPER s/t (self-released) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ahhh Grouper. The work of one woman named Liz, Grouper manage to push all of our musical buttons. Hazy and crackly, staticky and droney, blurry and smeary, drifty and so dreamy. All of our favorite parts of records by Phillip Jeck, Tim Hecker, William Basinski and other dreamdrone minded folks, all boiled down into their essence, abstract obfuscated sonic drift, sounds smeared into wide open stretches of shimmer and drone. This s/t cd-r preceeds the Way Their Crept cd we made Record of the Week last year, and while sonically similar, differs in a couple ways. One, the recording is much more lo-fi, which in other cases might be unfortunate, but in the case of Grouper, just adds a whole 'nother layer of grit and grime and murk. In addition to being more lo-fi, some of the tracks here are way heavier than anything else we've heard from her. Some tracks are REALLY heavy, channeling all of Grouper's fuzzy drones and murky soundscapes into huge rumbling wall of dronedirge guitar, the sort of din that would fit sungly right there alongside your SUNNO))), Earth and Corrupted. But those brutal squalls are in the minority, and even then, the heaviness quickly gives way to a beautifully tranquil aftermath, a hazy fuzzed out barely there drift.
SUPER LIMITED. We have about 20 copies, and we're pretty sure once these are gone we won't be able to get more.
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"

album cover GROUPER Tried (Type) 7" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest in Type Records' 7" singles series (past releases included Machinefabriek, Goldmund, Paavoharju, Benoit Piolard and Tarentel) comes from local vocal soundscaper Liz Harris, aka Grouper, and it's another beauty. Not sure if she just keeps getting better, or it's just that we love here records so much that every new one just reminds us why and how much we dig here deliriously dreamy sounds.
The A side just might be the closest to a proper pop song Grouper has ever recorded, but it's still appropriately buried in soft murky fuzz, making the notes mushy and indistinct, her breathy vocals shimmering streaks of melody, the whole thing a warm, melancholy blur of soft pop abstraction. Absolutely stunning. In the time it's taken to review just the A side, we've listened to it three times in a row! In fact we would have gone for a fourth had we not moved on to the other side...
If the A side is a glimpse of Grouper's perfect pop, then the B side is her torch song, a gorgeous moody ballad, and it's like the dense clouds of reverb have finally parted, revealing what lurked behind all that shimmer and buzz, delicate sensual vocals, drifting minor key piano, a stripped down late night dark nightclub on the edge of town sort of stormclouds and roaring fire, folk flecked ballad. Still a bit of reverb and delay, but they merely drift by, or hover in the background. Totally gorgeous.

album cover GROUPER Way Their Crept (Free Porcupine Society) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
FINALLY REPRESSED and BACK IN STOCK! And now this former AQ Record Of The Week comes in a sturdier sleeve with a little book of drawings too, value added for those who missed it before... hardly fair for those who picked it up back when but nice if you're just getting it now.
Imagine Arvo Part if he was a punk rock woman from Oakland. Or imagine an ultra lo-fi Morton Feldman jamming with Matthew Bower of Skullflower, backed up by a ghostly choir. This is one of those records that is so perfectly aQuarius it sounds like it was composed and recorded just for us. And you. A perfect blend of warm textured ambience and thick corrosive drones, delicate melodies wrapped in a gorgeously crunchy gritty hissy production. The whole record is a ghostly shimmer, warm washes of otherworldly vibrations swirling in a thick morass of processed vocals, murky keyboards and guitars rendered so unguitarlike they more resemble warm wiggles of sound, like slinky's stretched as far as they will go, slightly vibrating, barely disturbing the air around them, small waves of sound like ripples in a pond building and building and piled atop one another until it's a massive, thick blanket of sound. Imagine the saddest slowest band you've ever heard playing at absolutely deafening volume, then imagine stuffing your ears full of cotton, and listening from behind a closed door, through a wall of mud and straw, warm wispy tendrils of sound creeping and crawling through the cracks, wrapping themselves in thick coils around your arms and legs, the whole room slowly filling with sound, until soon you're totally ensconced, submerged, surrounded by thick billows of slow shifting sound. Melodies become indistinct whispers stretched across minutes instead of seconds, guitars and keyboards become blissed out blurs, like floating weightless in a warm dark mysterious place made entirely of soft sound. Wow. Totally haunting and captivating.
MPEG Stream: "Way Their Crept"
MPEG Stream: "Hold A Desert, Feel Its Hand"
MPEG Stream: "Sang Their Way"

album cover GROUPER Way Their Crept (Type) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
FINALLY AVAILABLE ON VINYL!! But only for a limited time. Limited to 500 copies...
Imagine Arvo Part if he was a punk rock woman from Oakland. Or imagine an ultra lo-fi Morton Feldman jamming with Matthew Bower of Skullflower, backed up by a ghostly choir. This is one of those records that is so perfectly aQuarius it sounds like it was composed and recorded just for us. And you. A perfect blend of warm textured ambience and thick corrosive drones, delicate melodies wrapped in a gorgeously crunchy gritty hissy production. The whole record is a ghostly shimmer, warm washes of otherworldly vibrations swirling in a thick morass of processed vocals, murky keyboards and guitars rendered so unguitarlike they more resemble warm wiggles of sound, like slinky's stretched as far as they will go, slightly vibrating, barely disturbing the air around them, small waves of sound like ripples in a pond building and building and piled atop one another until it's a massive, thick blanket of sound. Imagine the saddest slowest band you've ever heard playing at absolutely deafening volume, then imagine stuffing your ears full of cotton, and listening from behind a closed door, through a wall of mud and straw, warm wispy tendrils of sound creeping and crawling through the cracks, wrapping themselves in thick coils around your arms and legs, the whole room slowly filling with sound, until soon you're totally ensconced, submerged, surrounded by thick billows of slow shifting sound. Melodies become indistinct whispers stretched across minutes instead of seconds, guitars and keyboards become blissed out blurs, like floating weightless in a warm dark mysterious place made entirely of soft sound. Wow. Totally haunting and captivating.
MPEG Stream: "Way Their Crept"
MPEG Stream: "Hold A Desert, Feel Its Hand"
MPEG Stream: "Sang Their Way"

album cover GROUPER Wide (Free Porcupine Society) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We made the debut full length from this Bay Area one woman dream drone outfit Record of the Week a while back, and ever since, have been waiting patiently for another slab of her beautifully dense ghostlike soundscapes. Since then, it seems like any one with a microphone and a delay pedal has decided to make some atmospheric vocal based drone record. And while some of those have indeed been quite good, few can come close to the utter abstract beauty of Liz Harris and her Grouper project.
When describing Grouper, the most mentioned comparisons seem to be Arvo Part and Morton Feldman, Part no doubt because of the vocal/choral aspect, and Feldman because this is definitely a sort of dreamlike minimalism, but Grouper is definitey something else entirely. A murky dreamworld of shimmering guitar and indistinct voices, swirling clouds of smeared melody, drifting whirls of warm thick delay, and dense layers of mumbly reverb. It's the sonic equivalent of wandering through some ghost town, almost everything obscured by thick fog, the streetlights, like distant lightning bugs, warm orange glows, staining the fog like a child's fingerpaints, even sound can barely travel so you exist sonically in a tiny muffled and muted cocoon, like listening to the world around you with ears full of wet cotton. Drifting disembodied vocals drenched in thick dubby FX are spread out paper thin into nearly transparent sheets of gauzy whir, like a chorale of ghosts, singing in some vast underground cavern. Within all of this murk and fog, lurk heartbreaking melodies, perfect little melancholy pop songs, but almost completely obscured from view, so instead of hearing songs, it's like barely remembering a little melody, or getting a tune stuck in your head only to have it fly away moments later, and struggling to remember just how that song went. A strangely emotional sonic trigger for lost memories, and indescribable landscapes, amorphous sounds, and a world both familar and completely alien.
Unlike her freenoise / dronerock / whatever contemporaries, who are happy to just make a big loud sound, or push a few buttons and start a low rumbling drone, with Grouper, it's more like the songs started out as proper songs, verses, choruses, sweet little melodies, gentle lilting vocals, but those songs were left in a corner, and allowed to get dusty, then set outside where they leaned for weeks, propped up against the side of the house, getting rained on, dappled with morning dew, they began to rust, and decay, weeds grew up around them, small animals made nests in them. Eventually, they were collected, and placed in a dusty old wagon, where they spent the majority of the journey, getting bumped and jostled, pieces breaking off, bits smearing into other bits, becoming less and less obviously songs, and more like the decayed husks of songs, still beautiful, and lovely in their own way, but lonely, and forgotten, until one day, they were all gathered up and placed in order, dusted off, polished up until they glow with some dim inner light, and thus they become Wide, and we close our eyes and listen...
MPEG Stream: "Little Boat / Bone Dance (Audrey)"
MPEG Stream: "Imposter In The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Agate Beach"

album cover GROUPER Wide (Weird Forest) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Re-pressed and available once again!!! Though, presumably also once again somewhat limited...
We made the debut full length from this Bay Area one woman dream drone outfit Record of the Week when it came out originally, and ever since, we've been waiting patiently for every new release. We just can't get enough of her beautifully dense ghostlike soundscapes. Since then though, it seems like any one with a microphone and a delay pedal has decided to make some atmospheric vocal based drone record. And while some of those have indeed been quite good, few can come close to the utter abstract beauty of Liz Harris and her Grouper project.
When describing Grouper, the most mentioned comparisons seem to be Arvo Part and Morton Feldman, Part no doubt because of the vocal/choral aspect, and Feldman because this is definitely a sort of dreamlike minimalism, but Grouper is definitely something else entirely. A murky dreamworld of shimmering guitar and indistinct voices, swirling clouds of smeared melody, drifting whirls of warm thick delay, and dense layers of mumbly reverb. It's the sonic equivalent of wandering through some ghost town, almost everything obscured by thick fog, the streetlights, like distant lightning bugs, warm orange glows, staining the fog like a child's fingerpaints, even sound can barely travel so you exist sonically in a tiny muffled and muted cocoon, like listening to the world around you with ears full of wet cotton. Drifting disembodied vocals drenched in thick dubby FX are spread out paper thin into nearly transparent sheets of gauzy whir, like a chorale of ghosts, singing in some vast underground cavern. Within all of this murk and fog, lurk heartbreaking melodies, perfect little melancholy pop songs, but almost completely obscured from view, so instead of hearing songs, it's like barely remembering a little melody, or getting a tune stuck in your head only to have it fly away moments later, and struggling to remember just how that song went. A strangely emotional sonic trigger for lost memories, and indescribable landscapes, amorphous sounds, and a world both familiar and completely alien.
Unlike her freenoise / dronerock / whatever contemporaries, who are happy to just make a big loud sound, or push a few buttons and start a low rumbling drone, with Grouper, it's more like the songs started out as proper songs, verses, choruses, sweet little melodies, gentle lilting vocals, but those songs were left in a corner, and allowed to get dusty, then set outside where they leaned for weeks, propped up against the side of the house, getting rained on, dappled with morning dew, they began to rust, and decay, weeds grew up around them, small animals made nests in them. Eventually, they were collected, and placed in a dusty old wagon, where they spent the majority of the journey, getting bumped and jostled, pieces breaking off, bits smearing into other bits, becoming less and less obviously songs, and more like the decayed husks of songs, still beautiful, and lovely in their own way, but lonely, and forgotten, until one day, they were all gathered up and placed in order, dusted off, polished up until they glow with some dim inner light, and thus they become Wide, and we close our eyes and listen...
MPEG Stream: "Little Boat / Bone Dance (Audrey)"
MPEG Stream: "Imposter In The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Agate Beach"

album cover GROUPER / CITY CENTER False Horizon / This Is How We See In The Dark (City Center) 7" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Super limited split single from aQ beloved Grouper, and the new-to-us City Center.
Grouper continues in her slow drift away from the lo-fi murk of early recordings into something distinctly more folky, with softly strummed acoustic guitars, and a gorgeous swirl of voices, overlapping harmonies, ethereal and almost choral sounding, the result, while still psychedelic and lo-fi, just might be the best sounding, and strangely enough, poppiest, track we've heard yet from Grouper!
City Center fares just as well, offering up a hazy lo-fi murk-pop gem that leaves us definitely wanting more. Beach Boys style harmonies doused in effects and buried in buzz and girt, laced over woozy guitars and a mechanical looped rhythm, delay and reverb everywhere and all over everything, warped and underwater sounding, with some incredible hooks barely audible through the hazy fug wrapped around the whole track. Think John Maus, Ariel Pink, Kurt Vile, that same sort of otherworldly seventies radio station vibe, but even more psychedelic and pretty.
AWESOME!

album cover GROUPER / INCA ORE split (Acuarela) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Originally released as a super limited cassette, which went out of print almost immediately. Then reissued as an almost as limited lp, which also disappeared in no time. So finally, this long sought after, constantly unavailable slab of gorgeous gauzy, folky dream drift, is available as an actual cd. Probably pretty limited too, but for now, we should have enough to last us a little while.
You probably already know just from the two artists if you need this or not. New work from two of the few women kicking ass in the mostly male 'noise rock' scene. Both huge AQ faves, both who utilize voice and effects, in addition to the usual string-ed instruments to weave dreamlike soundscapes and delicate cinematic ambience.
Both are in full effect here, each outfit offering up gauzy beauty and mysterious haunting murk, distant shimmery drones and abstract lo-fi song fragments. Gorgeous as always.
MPEG Stream: INCA ORE "Churpa Champurrado"
MPEG Stream: INCA ORE "Baby Tiger, I Went Far Away"
MPEG Stream: GROUPER "Little Grey Cat"
MPEG Stream: GROUPER "Poison Tree"

album cover GROUPER / PUMICE split (self-released) 7" 7.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
So this past spring Grouper and Pumice graced New Zealand with a small tour, and we were lucky enough to track down a few of the highly limited splits they brought along. Grouper's side is a hazy, dream-like offering of her Way Their Crept type drugged out drone-pop. And Pumice's side is not unlike the material on the recent Quo album. Both previously unreleased tracks for these bedroom pop heavyweights, limited to 500 copies, don't even think about missing out on this one!

album cover GROUPER / ROY MONTGOMERY split (self-released) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

album cover HARRIS, LIZ (GROUPER) Divide (Root Strata) book+dvd 38.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Considering how quick Grouper stuff blows out of here, this one most likely doesn't need too much of a description. Divide is the first book of original artwork from Liz Harris (aka Grouper), black and white, and super striking, intricate branch like patterns, washed out water colors, tangled knots, mysterious patterned mandalas, crystalline arrangements of lines and space, a style most aQ-ers will recognize from various Grouper releases. The softcover book measures 7" by 7", and has beautiful full color front and back covers, and includes a dvd, featuring an original video by Harris, accompanied by a gorgeous Grouper soundtrack (featuring Rob Fisk from Common Eider, King Eider on viola), and as you might expect, it's another fantastic dreamlike sonic drift, all warm whirling otherworldly haze and gauzy ethereal shimmer. So nice.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, we have less than 10, and most likely will NOT be able to get more...

album cover INCA ORE / GROUPER split (self-released) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Originally released as an insanely limited cassette, one that we sold out of in a matter of minutes, then on vinyl, which sold out super quick as well, but just managed to get a handful direct from Inca Ore, so if you missed out, one more chance before they're maybe gone forever...
As we mentioned in the original review, Inca Ore and Grouper are two of the few females currently kicking ass in the seriously dude oriented noise rock scene (Leslie Keffer and Valet are a couple others), and they approach their 'noise' with a distinctly different aesthetic, instead of walls of sound or sheets of distorted skree, the two focus on the sound of the human voice, their vocals cloaked in reverb and delay and echo, layering their blurred croons over swirling seas of smeared shimmery sound and delicate spidery guitars, wheezing organs and warm whirring buzz. Thankfully, together, the sound remains much the same, but blossoms a bit, two different, but complimentary voices, each with a knack for soft focus minor key melodies, each contributing their own particular style of washed out fractured folk, and the results are divine, fans of either band won't be disappointed, hushed and dreamlike soundscapes, dark, delicate cinematic ambience, gauzy and wispy, mysterious and haunting murky and muddy, a vast expanse of distant shimmery drones washing over abstract lo-fi song fragments and chunks of fragmented folks drifting in the abyss.
MPEG Stream: INCA ORE "Churpa Champurrado"
MPEG Stream: INCA ORE "Baby Tiger, I Went Far Away"
MPEG Stream: GROUPER "Little Grey Cat"
MPEG Stream: GROUPER "Poison Tree"

album cover INCA ORE / GROUPER split (self-released) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We have very very very few of these so we won't go into too much detail. You probably already know just from the two artists if you need this or not. New work from two of the few women kicking ass in the mostly male 'noise rock' scene. Both huge AQ faves, both who utilize voice and effects, in addition to the usual string-ed instruments to weave dreamlike soundscapes and delicate cinematic ambience.
Both are in full effect here, each outfits offering up gauzy beauty and mysterious haunting murk, distant shimmery drones and abstract lo-fi song fragments. Gorgeous as always.
Printed insert in a gold paint splattered tape case. And as mentioned above, CRAZY limited and gone before you know it.

LIZ HARRIS (GROUPER) & ILYAS AHMED Visitor (Social Music Record Club) lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

album cover MONTGOMERY, ROY / GROUPER split (Grouper Records) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We had a vinyl version of this split between ethereal bliss-scaper Liz Harris aka Grouper, and legendary NZ guitarist Roy Montgomery, a while back, but we got so few copies, and had such a rush on the ones we did get, that we never had a chance to review it, and thus it never even made it up onto the site. But now it's finally been reissued on cd, and with a bonus Roy Montgomery track to boot!
Roy's original track/side was a gorgeously epic bit of dreamy strum and steel string drift, titled "Fantasia On A Theme By Sandy Bull (Slight Return)", just that instantly recognizable guitar, a cloud of buzzing steel strings, a sort of blissed out Appalachia spread out over nearly 20 minutes, the sound slipping smoothly from that urgent strum, to something much more hushed and minimal, abstract and softly space-y, and over the course of the track, drifting between the two. Hypnotic and haunting and quite lovely.
His bonus track is a billowy cloud of chiming shimmering guitar, sweet melancholy melodies, piled atop a jangly strum, notes wreathed in delay and reverb and echo, the sound somehow both ethereal and propulsive, ghostly and insistent, the sounds hazy and gauzy and washed out, but subtly tense, with a sense of mystery and loss and longing, the aural equivalent of watching the world through rain slicked windows, in fact, Montgomery seems impossibly deft at creating the perfect rainy day soundtrack.
Grouper's half of the split begins with "Hollow Press", and the sound of whispering wind, for nearly two minutes, before ethereal effected vocals drift in, floating atop the swirling soft white noise, which leads directly into "Vessel", a haunting elegy of weirdly distorted guitar, unfurled in spidery tendrils, the vocals nearly free of effects, and sounding as angelic as ever, a gorgeous hushed lullaby. "Hold The Way" is another gentle bit of crystalline drift, a looped muted guitar figure, undulating softly beneath sweetly crooned vox, a dream pop slowed down and blurred into something much more ethereal and ephemeral. Finally, "Pulse" sends reverbed guitars drifting from speaker to speaker, the stereo field dizzyingly panned, softly psychedelic, slowly the wind returns, and guitar fading out leaving just the sound of wind, and a barking dog, a hazy outro of found sound, wiping away all the traces of the sounds that came before, like the surf smoothing out sand on the beach. So Lovely.
The new cd version is housed in a swank digipak, and is still most likely WAY too limited...
MPEG Stream: GROUPER "Hollow Press"
MPEG Stream: ROY MONTGOMERY "Vessel"
MPEG Stream: "Fantasia on a Theme by Sandy Bull (Slight Return)"

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