GRIZZLY BEAR Shields (Warp) 2lp 31.00
It took some of us a while to come around, but we eventually ended up digging Grizzly Bear's debut, Veckatimest, quite a bit - orchestral pop equal parts Van Dyke Parks and Elliott Smith, lush and lovely, impossibly catchy, dreamily dramatic. So we were definitely prepared to dig this new one, but we weren't necessarily prepared for THIS. Give the opening track a listen (the first sound sample below), and be as baffled by us by GB's new sound, and we mean baffled in a good way, a really good way, in place of their sweetly twee Pitchfork-y pop, is something downright PROGGY, dark and driving, they sound like some obscure Italian prog from the seventies, we hear a little Yes too, some Comus even, everything minor key and darkly tinged, intensely strummed acoustic guitars, the vocals reminding us of Terry Reid, the dense mix rife with blooping percolating synths, driven by bombastic drumming, the sounds stereo panned, swooping from speaker to speaker, there's even some seriously hard rocking fuzz drenched psych guitar, it's total modern retro trip out psychedelic prog. We're curious how fans of the last record will feel about this, but we can definitely tell you we're LOVING it. Sort of the way Malachai reimagined seventies proto metal and fuzzy psych rock, the sound here, at least in places, is equal parts obscure prog and acid folk, a bit modernized for sure, but that opener, wow.
Nothing else on the record is so overtly retro prog, but that vibe does ooze into the rest of the record, giving the whole thing a definite retro feel, the production, the arrangements, the songs, plenty of tripped out experimentation, dark drones, GB's dreamy pop does of course shine through in places, but for the most part, the feel is a bit more haunting and melancholic, and yeah, folky / proggy / sixties / seventies sounding, with some of the songs dipping into early Peter Gabriel and Genesis territory (just check out "What's Wrong"), and others unfurling as almost classic rock sounding ballads, but darkly psychedelic and dramatically brooding (check out the closer "Sun In Your Eyes"), which makes for a cool / strange balance for the overt pop that surfaces throughout. Awesome!
MPEG Stream: "Sleeping Ute"
MPEG Stream: "Speak In Rounds"
MPEG Stream: "What's Wrong"
MPEG Stream: "Sun In Your Eyes"

GRIZZLY BEAR Veckatimest (Warp) cd 15.98
Looks like this is gonna be the album that establishes Grizzly Bear and brings them to the next level, and for good reason, as it's their most ambitious and assured outing yet. Filled with such lush deep harmonies, these are songs that create such lovely states of brooding, dramatic pop both smart and emotional. Imagine sprinkling Van Dyke Parks arrangements on top of the songs Elliott Smith was creating near the end of his life as well as a healthy dose of inspiration from Nina Simone and you start to get an idea for the kind of intense orchestral baroque pop Grizzly Bear have created with Veckatimest. They enlisted Nico Muhly to create arrangements on a few of the tracks, but even the songs without Muhly's touch are are still impossibly lush and rich sounding. Veckatimest almost makes us want it to be gray and wet outside forever as these are the kind of sounds to keep you warm in the darkest and coldest of times. So nice! And even Andee, who was never that keen on Grizzly Bear, was immediately smitten by the track "Two Weeks". If that track doesn't convince you, then maybe you just don't like pop music...
MPEG Stream: "Two Weeks"
MPEG Stream: "Cheerleader"
MPEG Stream: "I Live With You"

GRIZZLY BEAR Veckatimest (Warp) 2lp 25.00
Looks like this is gonna be the album that establishes Grizzly Bear and brings them to the next level, and for good reason, as it's their most ambitious and assured outing yet. Filled with such lush deep harmonies, these are songs that create such lovely states of brooding, dramatic pop both smart and emotional. Imagine sprinkling Van Dyke Parks arrangements on top of the songs Elliott Smith was creating near the end of his life as well as a healthy dose of inspiration from Nina Simone and you start to get an idea for the kind of intense orchestral baroque pop Grizzly Bear have created with Veckatimest. They enlisted Nico Muhly to create arrangements on a few of the tracks, but even the songs without Muhly's touch are are still impossibly lush and rich sounding. Veckatimest almost makes us want it to be gray and wet outside forever as these are the kind of sounds to keep you warm in the darkest and coldest of times. So nice! And even Andee, who was never that keen on Grizzly Bear, was immediately smitten by the track "Two Weeks". If that track doesn't convince you, then maybe you just don't like pop music...
MPEG Stream: "Two Weeks"
MPEG Stream: "Cheerleader"
MPEG Stream: "I Live With You"

GRIZZLY BEAR Yellow House (Warp) cd 15.98
If you're anything like us, you'd been hearing about Grizzly Bear long before you actually got to hear them. When we finally did hear "Horn Of Plenty", their record which came out a few years back, we immediately realized why people had been buzzing. And thus we were the ones buzzing about the impending release of Yellow House, a dark and delicious mix of rich pop and grand bedroom orchestration. Yellow House is the kind of record you keep by your side on cold and rainy days. It almost sounds like Sufjan Stevens on valium with Jim O'Rourke on the board and the Black Heart Procession helping out with extra moody layers of longing and a deep sweet musical ache. We love how their songs have a sense of movement and space, and how they actually write great goddamned songs. "On A Neck, On A Spit" is most definitely a contender for song of the year! And this entire record is turning out to be chock full of song of the year contenders. The perfect warm music to stave off the impending winter chill.
MPEG Stream: "On A Neck, On A Spit"
MPEG Stream: "Easier"
MPEG Stream: "Little Brother"

GRODY, DANNY PAUL Fountain (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.
First proper solo record from this core member of SF post rockers Tarentel, as well as the mastermind behind another post rock combo we dig, the even dreamier The Drift.
Fountain is simply fantastic, a subtle and varied affair, that dips into various sounds and moods, with acoustic and electric guitars as the main instrumentation, although the guitars are augmented by melodica, keyboard, bow, voice, and of course, rain.
The sounds here are delicate and crystalline, lush and warm, dreamy and sun dappled, deftly fingerpicked abstract Appalachia, gives way to melancholic folk, chamber music drifts into thick layered dronemusic, hushed one second, exuberant and joyful the next, a gorgeous, ever shifting songsuite, that definitely harkens back to classic seventies folk music, but is infused with the more abstract home brewed abstract bedroom dronemusic of today, as well as nods to the post rock that informs so much of the music Grody plays.
Totally blissful and dreamy, from the hushed opener, simply strummed guitars, and slow shifting overtones, to the spare finger picked beauty of "Well Wisher", that gradually blossoms into a sunshiney bit of glimmery instrumental dream pop, to the pop ambient haze of "Covered Mirrors", to the sprawling "Eve", a gorgeous folk flecked steel string work out, interrupted part way by a gorgeous cloud of lush shimmering whir, to the dark, muted, blurred guitarscape that makes up the record's closer "Finding Time", notes suspended in space, tones drawn out into extended humming soft focus drones, little melodic fragments chiming in the distance, all moving glacially through a sepia toned haze. So so lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "Four Years"
MPEG Stream: "Route 1"
MPEG Stream: "Hungry / Haunted"

GRODY, DANNY PAUL In Search Of Light (Students Of Decay) lp 16.98
Such a gorgeous second solo effort from Danny Paul Grody (The Drift, Believer, Moholy-Nagy, Tarentel). Adding beautiful elements of harmonium, synthesizer, bows, and bells to his blissful guitar playing, Grody has made the perfect autumnal album. These instrumental tracks take you to a place where your mind and body start to gently sway, and the stress, sadness, and loss of being alive are both acknowledged while also allowing you to drift into a dreamier state of mind, recalling some of our favorite records by folks like William Eaton, James Blackshaw, Bruce Langhorne, Jozef Van Wissem, and Steffen Basho-Junghans.
While many other solo records by great guitar players can often feel as a show off session for how well trained they are, In Search Of Light is an album more invested in creating an actual mood and atmosphere then hitting you over the head with tricky playing or trying to sound exactly like John Fahey. In fact it's the patience and subtly of Grody's playing that always attracts us to his work and keeps us listening for the reward of repeated listens. So perfect for fall, this record makes us want to put on our favorite autumn sweater as we cuddle up near a fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate and read a book of poems or just daydream the afternoon away. Highly recommended! Comes with a digital download so you can also dream the day away while in transit or at your computer...
MPEG Stream: "Hello From Everywhere"
MPEG Stream: "Orbits"
MPEG Stream: "Stars Gaze"

GRONG GRONG s/t (Alternative Tentacles) lp 13.98
We made a huge deal about the recent double disc reissue of this gnarled, noiserock classic from these Australian misanthropes, and lucky for you vinyl freaks, one of our distributors discovered a stash of the original lp release in their warehouse. So grab one while you can...
Grong Grong was born on a whim, named for a small Australian town, that one of the members just happened to be passing through, when he got home, he decided he had to start a band, and it had to be called Grong Grong. And apparently the simple approach of asking folks "Do you want to be in a band called Grong Grong?" was enough, and soon, Grong Grong were playing shows and making records. Or at least a record, and what a record, filthy, grimey, noisy, raw, primitive, pounding, chaotic, punk as fuck, a little post punk, a little new wave, crunchy angular guitars, throbbing low slung bass, wild drumming, and big bellowed vocals drenched in reverb, the band locking into a single riff, and working it and pounding away, the guitar spiraling off into weird little tangles while the bass and drums stayed locked into their groove, and the vocals swooped all over the place, the delay sending the grunts and growls careening from speaker to speaker. Not sure how these guys ended up on AT (well, Jello was a big fan), seems like they might have been just as at home on AmRep, where most of the other bands from this scene ended up.
Hardly matters, this is some awesome classic Aussie weirdo noise punk, and it sounds as good as it ever did, and listening to this now, it's shocking how many young bands are aping these guys big time, whether they realized it or not. Swampy, bluesy, woozy, psychedelic, lurching, lumbering, sloppy and loose, but so goddamn good, and those vocals, totally pushing all those same Killdozer buttons, but these guys were way more minimal, all about mood and texture and vibe, not parts, not verses and choruses, they sort of just launched into a song and kept going until it ground to a halt, or the band collapsed into a heap only to stumble into the next track. This is THEE shit.
MPEG Stream: "Grong Grong"
MPEG Stream: "Angels & Demons"
MPEG Stream: "Club Grotesque"

GRONG GRONG To Hell 'N' Back (Memorandum / Abberant) cd+dvd 19.98
We are SO PSYCHED that this has finally been reissued. Back in the eighties there was an amazing punk/noise rock scene happening in Australia, Lubricated Goat, King Snake Roost, the Kryptonics and of course Grong Grong, and it seems like the Memorandum label has been started up with the sole purpose of rescuing those classic sounds from obscurity. There is a double disc Lubricated Goat reissue coming soon, which will most likely be a Record Of The Week, the catchy Kryptonics record is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, we've emailed the label asking them to please please please reissue the King Snake Roost records, which brings us to Grong Grong, Australia's answer to Killdozer, or maybe Flipper. Originally released on Alternative Tentacles, the record is fleshed out here with a ton of bonus tracks, live tracks, and even a dvd with amazing archival footage of the band! But you say, why should we care?
Grong Grong was born on a whim, named for a small Australian town, that one of the members just happened to be passing through, when he got home, he decided he had to start a band, and it had to be called Grong Grong. And apparently the simple approach of asking folks "Do you want to be in a band called Grong Grong?" was enough, and soon, Grong Grong were playing shows and making records. Or at least a record, and what a record, filthy, grimey, noisy, raw, primitive, pounding, chaotic, punk as fuck, a little post punk, a little new wave, crunchy angular guitars, throbbing low slung bass, wild drumming, and big bellowed vocals drenched in reverb, the band locking into a single riff, and working it and pounding away, the guitar spiraling off into weird little tangles while the bass and drums stayed locked into their groove, and the vocals swooped all over the place, the delay sending the grunts and growls careening from speaker to speaker. Not sure how these guys ended up on AT (well, Jello was a big fan), seems like they might have been just as at home on AmRep, where most of the other bands from this scene ended up.
Hardly matters, this is some awesome classic Aussie weirdo noise punk, and it sounds as good as it ever did, and listening to this now, it's shocking how many young bands are aping these guys big time, whether they realized it or not. Swampy, bluesy, woozy, psychedelic, lurching, lumbering, sloppy and loose, but so goddamn good, and those vocals, totally pushing all those same Killdozer buttons, but these guys were way more minimal, all about mood and texture and vibe, not parts, not verses and choruses, they sort of just launched into a song and kept going until it ground to a halt, or the band collapsed into a heap only to stumble into the next track, which is evidenced by the bonus DVD which features tons of old recordings, even their very first show, and even back then they were a serious force to be reckoned with. Seems like we already have a contender for reissue of the year and it's only January, only possibility of it getting knocked out of the running, is if those Lubricated Goat or King Snake Roost reissues materialize, and more than likely all three will rank in the top ten, but for now, this is THEE shit.
MPEG Stream: "Grong Grong"
MPEG Stream: "Angels & Demons"
MPEG Stream: "Club Grotesque"
MPEG Stream: "Black Hell"

GROOP, THE s/t (Sundazed) cd 14.98
The Mamas and The Papas meet Midnight Cowboy for some dark L.A. Sunshine Pop.

GROOVIE GHOULIES Travels With My Amp (Lookout!) cd 12.98
When the Ghoulies are around you're guaranteed a good time. A veritable pop punk whirlwind of bats, monsters and creepy crawlies. Vocalist Kepi bounds around the stage like a possessed, manic monkey. And with this their newest release on Lookout! Records, you can almost relive their live show experience featuring their current line-up: Roach (guitar), B-Face (bass, formerly of the Queers), and new drummer Amy. Handwritten lyrics and an array of tour photos included.

GROUND UNICORN HORN Damn I Wish I Was Fat (Three One G) 3"cd 6.98
As if he's not busy enough with his main band's latest fierce full length New Erections and running his own indie label ThreeOneG, The Locust's Justin Pearson juggles many a side project including this new one Ground Unicorn Horn. And well, actually we guess he and his three pals Chris Hathwell (of Moving Units), Amy Szychowski (of Josh Taylor's Friends Forever) and Chuck Rowell (of Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower) really didn't need a whole lot of time to spit out this lil' 2 song 3" cdep. It's a whopping three minutes and twenty four seconds of primitive eye-gouge and brain fry rawk which probably doesn't possess the potent cure-all and hallucinatory qualities found in the substance of the same name, but it sure packs its own riled up mucus-loosening wallop.
MPEG Stream: "Damn I Wish I Was Fat"

GROUND ZERO / BASTARD (Pandemonium) 7" 3.99
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
GZ: One long, live track. Heavy on the sampling mayhem and turntable fuckery.
B: Truly bizarre, repetitive, turntablized hypno-rock.

GROUNDHOGS Split (EMI) cd 12.98
Hey! Just in time to tie-in with our recent review of the new album Rhythms From The Cosmic Sky by Earthless (a highlight on list #265), we've received several brand new cd reissues of old Groundhogs albums, among them this one from 1971, Split. What's the connection? Well... take a listen! And also recall that the bonus track on that Earthless disc was a cover of the Groundhogs' "Cherry Red", the original of which is to be found here. Knowing how much y'all love Earthless, we figured we'd order up on these and make it a highlight too. The other Groundhogs reissues we have to refamiliarize ourselves with a bit, but this one we know is an ultimate psychedelic blues rock classic. The title track is an extended epic four-part suite, taking the blues far into prog territory, while "Cherry Red" is simply a hard-driving, HEAVY bomb track for sure. And for this reish, the album's original eight tracks are augmented by four bonus BBC live in concert recordings, versions of "Cherry Red" and parts 1, 2 and 4 of "Split"!
Lead by guitar hero Tony McPhee, the Groundhogs were among the best of the late '60s British blues boom, heavy and freaky enough for today's backwards-looking proto-metal fanatics to cotton to. The occasional hippy goofiness and old tymey Beefheartian hijinx may or may not be to everyone's taste, but we (Earthless fans for sure) can all agree on awesomeness of the wailing fuzzed guitar parts, can't we? And those are NOT few nor far between. Split is all about the energetic riffage -- and the concept of (drug induced?) mental breakdown readily conjured by McPhee's wild soloing. File with other early, exploratory heaviness like High Tide, T2, Arzachel... and Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac as well.
MPEG Stream: "Split, Part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Cherry Red"

GROUNDHOGS Thank Christ For The Bomb (EMI) cd 14.98

GROUNDHOGS Who Will Save The World (EMI) cd 12.98

GROUP 1850 Paradise Now (Free) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Cd reissue of the 1969 second album by Group 1850, a Dutch heavy psychedelic group featuring (in addition to the usual bass, drums, and guitars) some freaky flute and droning organ, plus effects-laden vocals in accented English. Spaced-out-there in the Floyd realms for sure. Their first album, 1968's "Agemo's Trip To Mother Earth" is considered a sixties psych concept album classic, and this ain't too shabby either. Songs like "Purple Sky" and "Hunger" are quite stoned-sounding, and probably sound even better if you are.
RealAudio clip: "Hunger"

GROUP RHODA Out Of Time - Out Of Touch (Night School) cd 14.98

GROUP RHODA Out Of Time - Out Of Touch (Night School) lp 16.98

GROUPER A I A (Dream Loss / Alien Observer) (Kranky) 2cd 16.98
Finally both extremely limited and way out of print lps, that came and went in a flash last year, have been reissued together on a not-as-limited double cd set via Kranky!
We've gushed and gushed about Grouper so much in the past, and we're going to do it once again because these albums are utterly gorgeous! While 2008's Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill found Liz Harris, aka Grouper, starting to really embrace the idea of songs, we love how these cds, Alien Observer and Dream Loss (framed together by the personally symbolic pictographic title, "A I A") blur that focus once again. While one leans towards songs and structure, and the other towards more abstraction, they are pretty much equal companion pieces that mirror each other, and share similar tendencies that defy a defined experience (especially since it seems we discovered by the track listing that the cd labels are switched, making it even harder to pin down which one is which, but it's really no matter!). They're much more about mood, soft focus, hazy dreams, and ethereal exploration. Harris' voice a murmur built up through tape and Dictaphone loops like soft whispering leaves swirling in and out, and every sound and tone, whether it be acoustic guitar strums, far-off distorted delayed electronics, piano, bell tones or static, she uses and manipulates them with such a mastered ease. There's a hushed reverence to this suite that demands rapturous attention to Harris' cathedral like sound world, as if we were in some universal congregation listening to an angelic choir singing from the deepest remote space. 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. And smehow whenever we listen to them, everything else just fades away and for a little while all that matters is the soft narcotic rush we feel as the music plays.
MPEG Stream: "Dragging The Streets"
MPEG Stream: "Soul Eraser"
MPEG Stream: "A Lie"
MPEG Stream: "Moon is Sharp"
MPEG Stream: "Vapor Trails"

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. 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 Deer 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!!!!

GROUPER A I A: Alien Observer (Yellow Electric) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Lo and behold, we have these again! Apparently the fickle gods of limited vinyl granted a third pressing. Here's some of what we said when we first listed these last year on the occasion of their 2nd pressing, much of which still applies we're sure...
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[nother] repressing we're not sure how many, if any, more of these we're going to be able to get...
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 2008's Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill 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. Harris' voice a murmur built up through tape and Dictaphone loops like soft whispering leaves swirling in and out, and every sound and tone, whether it be acoustic guitar strums, far-off distorted delayed electronics, piano, bell tones or static, she uses and manipulates them with such a mastered ease. There's a hushed reverence to this suite that demands rapturous attention to Harris' cathedral like sound world, as if we were in some universal congregation listening to an angelic choir singing from the deepest remote space.
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 just fyi, the double cd version with both these records on it is still available as well, at essentially half the price.
MPEG Stream: "Moon is Sharp"
MPEG Stream: "Vapor Trails"

GROUPER A I A: Dream Loss (Yellow Electric) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Lo and behold, we have these again! Apparently the fickle gods of limited vinyl granted a third pressing. Here's some of what we said when we first listed these last year on the occasion of their 2nd pressing, much of which still applies we're sure...
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[nother] repressing we're not sure how many, if any, more of these we're going to be able to get...
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 2008's Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill 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. Harris' voice a murmur built up through tape and Dictaphone loops like soft whispering leaves swirling in and out, and every sound and tone, whether it be acoustic guitar strums, far-off distorted delayed electronics, piano, bell tones or static, she uses and manipulates them with such a mastered ease. There's a hushed reverence to this suite that demands rapturous attention to Harris' cathedral like sound world, as if we were in some universal congregation listening to an angelic choir singing from the deepest remote space.
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 just fyi, the double cd version with both these records on it is still available as well, at essentially half the price.
MPEG Stream: "Dragging The Streets"
MPEG Stream: "Soul Eraser"
MPEG Stream: "A Lie"

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"

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"

GROUPER Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (Kranky) cd 14.98
With the release of Grouper's newly revealed record, The Man Who Died In His Boat, Kranky has also reissued what is arguably Liz Harris's best record, Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, from 2008, on cd and lp (though we're already out of lps, dang it). Which makes sense since both records are psychically entwined together like lost twin sisters - more on that in the new album's review elsewhere on this list. It's the first time Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill has been reissued on cd, so we're glad it's finally available again and hopefully it will stick around for awhile. Here is what we originally said about it in 2008:
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 icy 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.
Currently, we only have the cd version, but the vinyl versions of both this and the new record are supposedly alredy being repressed.
MPEG Stream: "Disengaged"
MPEG Stream: "Heavy Water/ I'd Rather Be Sleeping"

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"

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"

GROUPER Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (Kranky) lp 14.98
Now repressed and back in stock on vinyl!!
With the release of Grouper's newly revealed record, The Man Who Died In His Boat, Kranky has also reissued what is arguably Liz Harris's best record, Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, from 2008, on cd and lp (though we're already out of lps, dang it). Which makes sense since both records are psychically entwined together like lost twin sisters - more on that in the new album's review elsewhere on this list. It's the first time Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill has been reissued on cd, so we're glad it's finally available again and hopefully it will stick around for awhile. Here is what we originally said about it in 2008:
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 icy 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"

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)...

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"

GROUPER Sleep (Fragment) (Filip Editions) one-sided 12" 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Good news and bad news: Yay we got a few of the new Grouper 12"s for you all, BUT they were shipped to us with the records inside the sleeves and all of the copies we got have an inch long seam split on the side. Arggh! We won't be able to get more, but we are able to discount these a bit so we can sell them at $3 less than the normal asking price of $16.98. Sorry about that! Please don't order if you are overly anal about the condition of your record sleeves.
Another mysterious missive from the ever elusive Grouper, this one even more mysterious since it is a one-sided fragment of a longer sprawling piece she has been performing live for the past couple of years, first at the Berkeley Art Museum, but also recently in such exotic locales as an abandoned polar bear enclosure at a Vancouver zoo. The vast space of the museum and zoo provided the opportunity to set up remote speakers throughout the space, so the sonic dimension of the multiple collaged tape loops of murked out guitar drones, pianos, built up vocals and other gorgeous hiss and noise could easily be manipulated spatially as the sound hovered in shimmering miasmas or pooled in delicate ripples of sound. The piece culminating in a swirling fading vortex of disintegration, like a beautiful drowning. Limited to 800 copies on white vinyl, we only have a few so act fast as they'll be gone before you know it!

GROUPER The Man Who Died In His Boat (Kranky) cd 14.98
Grouper's Liz Harris seems to be settling in comfortably on the Kranky label, with the release so far of the two AIA lps on cd for the first time, the debut from Mirrorring (Harris's duo project with Jesy Fortino from Tiny Vipers), and this "new" release, The Man Who Died In His Boat, which has come out in conjunction with a lp and cd reissue of her 2008 record Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, an AQ favorite. The release/re-release of both records together is no coincidence as the tracks on The Man Who Died In His Boat were recorded during the same sessions as Dragging A Dead Deer, and the new record has a long lost twin feel that we haven't heard on subsequent Grouper records since then. While she still employs the waves of foggy reverb and layered far away voices, there is a reappearance of fully formed songs and a sheen of less-filtered clarity. Both records are informed by key childhood memories, this one by a discovery with her father of beached sailboat, and their speculation about the man who disappeared sailing it. The ocean roar, swelling waves of reverbed sound, and the far away sadness of acoustic sea shanties pour throughout the release creating a moving hypnotic spell which invariably holds us helpless in its grasp. Beautiful!
Currently, we only have the cd version, but the vinyl versions of both this and the reissue of Dragging A Dead Deer are supposedly alredy being repressed.
MPEG Stream: "Vital"
MPEG Stream: "Difference (Voices)"
MPEG Stream: "The Man Who Died In His Boat"
MPEG Stream: "Living Room"

GROUPER The Man Who Died In His Boat (Kranky) lp 14.98
NOW FINALLY BACK IN STOCK TO LIST ON VINYL!!
Grouper's Liz Harris seems to be settling in comfortably on the Kranky label, with the release so far of the two AIA lps on cd for the first time, the debut from Mirrorring (Harris's duo project with Jesy Fortino from Tiny Vipers), and this "new" release, The Man Who Died In His Boat, which has come out in conjunction with a lp and cd reissue of her 2008 record Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, an AQ favorite. The release/re-release of both records together is no coincidence as the tracks on The Man Who Died In His Boat were recorded during the same sessions as Dragging A Dead Deer, and the new record has a long lost twin feel that we haven't heard on subsequent Grouper records since then. While she still employs the waves of foggy reverb and layered far away voices, there is a reappearance of fully formed songs and a sheen of less-filtered clarity. Both records are informed by key childhood memories, this one by a discovery with her father of beached sailboat, and their speculation about the man who disappeared sailing it. The ocean roar, swelling waves of reverbed sound, and the far away sadness of acoustic sea shanties pour throughout the release creating a moving hypnotic spell which invariably holds us helpless in its grasp. Beautiful!
MPEG Stream: "Vital"
MPEG Stream: "Difference (Voices)"
MPEG Stream: "The Man Who Died In His Boat"
MPEG Stream: "Living Room"

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.

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"

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"

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"

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!

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"

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!

GROUPIES: THE MOVIE (Cherry Red Films) dvd 24.00
When we first got this movie we figured we'd probably end up fast forwarding through the musical numbers just to get to the groupies, but it ended up being just the opposite. While a few minutes of the featured groupies getting ready to go out, talking about giving head to Jimmy Page, taking showers, arguing, writing songs about their conquests, can be pretty funny for a little while, it doesn't take long for it to become really tedious. Sort of a sitcom where the stars are two not very bright girls who just sit around smoking cigarettes and primping. It's still a pretty fascinating glimpse into the lives of groupies, the seventies rock scene, awesome psychedelic clubs, the clothes are amazing, as is the hair, and a lot of the girls are shockingly young. Pamela "I'm With The Band" DesBarres is featured a bit, and of course, Cynthia Plaster Caster is awesome, pudgy and cute and shy.
But it's the music that makes this disc so amazing, and the interactions between the bands and the groupies. Spooky Tooth is killer. Ten Years After totally blew us away. We had no idea how freaked out and psychedelic and heavy those guys could be. But it's worth it just for the two live sets from Terry Reid. So intense and impassioned. Reid is on fire, young and so beautiful, his voice an incredible wail, the band whipping up a blissed out psychrock storm, Reid's drummer is unbelievable. He's also a total crack up trying to protect Reid from one very drunk, gay male groupie, who had just been beaten up and just wanted to go home with Reid. There's also some live footage of a very young Joe Cocker, already looking pretty fucked up, and a band called Dry Creek Road.
So while some of the groupie stuff can be a little slow, overall, it's a pretty wild ride, booze and pills and sex and rock and roll, it definitely had some of us feeling like we were born just a little too late...

GROWING All The Way (Social Registry) cd 14.98
Growing have been on quite the hot streak as of late with each of their recent releases hitting the spot and pleasing our ears BIG TIME, with their soaring, mesmerizing, cosmic psychedelia. They keep the streak alive with All The Way, which finds the Brooklyn duo at their stuttering, looped, repetitive and hypnotic best. Almost sounding like a more focused and chilled out version of Black Dice, All The Way finds Growing continuing to explore outer dimensions of sound with a krauty disposition and space on their side. We really like how they've come to understand duration as their songs and records last long enough to spellbind with their propulsive sounds yet never overstay their welcome ending almost before you would like, so you're always ready to jump inside their orbit again. Very nice!
MPEG Stream: "Green Flag"
MPEG Stream: "Wrong Ride"
MPEG Stream: "Reconstruction"

GROWING Color Wheel (Megablade) cd 13.98
It must be hard to find a sound, especially one that is based in drone and drift, and continue to constantly push the limits of that sound without drifting too far away from the elements which define your essence. Growing have managed to do just that, moving gracefully from drone drenched space rock to minimal rumble and whir, to wherever it is they are now, some musical netherworld, equal parts subtle shifting shimmer, grinding distorted dirge, and sparkling barely there ambience. No higher compliment can be paid than "how the hell do we describe these amazing sounds?!" And really, it seems that any cursory description could not possibly do justice to the amazing sonic world Growing have created.
On Color Wheel, the drift and rumble and shimmer of the past few releases is still present, but stretched out even further, in even stranger directions, some, on first listen sound almost 'wrong', like the almost cheesy panpipe sounds of "Cumulusless", but within seconds some internal logic reveals those sounds to be sort of kind of perfect, in their own skewed way, and then they begin to blur and become a gorgeously murky melodic drift. Other songs are stretched even more dramatically, songs and parts are peppered with strange production techniques and unusually distorted glitches, jagged edits and completely unlikely sequencing. The opening track "Fancy Period" begins as a cool ambient whir, high end melodies swirling and drfiting ever skyward, before the drone sort of buckles, and those high end meldoies become distinct peals, each fluttering weightless above a shuffling fuzzy stuttering rhythm, almost like a skipping Sunroof! cd. Track two, "Friendly Confines", is actually the most 'unfriendly' of the bunch, the core of the track a huge swath of downtuned distorted sludge guitar, tinkling melodies buried in the murk and mire, a shifting wall of rooooaaaarrr, like a slow motion mudslide, before the melodies are freed, the dirge drifts off and all that is left is a series of very Fripp / Eno guitar figures, repetetive and sweetly hypnotic. The record's closing track "Green Pasture" mines similar territory, a blissy barely there drone, peppered with stacatto bursts of blown out vacuum cleaner metal guitar, a super dynamic seesaw, between burbling dreaminess and massive SUNNO)))-like dirge. Quite possibley the coolest Growing track yet...
MPEG Stream: "Fancy Period"
MPEG Stream: "Green Pasture"
MPEG Stream: "Peace Offering"

GROWING Color Wheel (Megablade) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It must be hard to find a sound, especially one that is based in drone and drift, and continue to constantly push the limits of that sound without drifting too far away from the elements which define your essence. Growing have managed to do just that, moving gracefully from drone drenched space rock to minimal rumble and whir, to wherever it is they are now, some musical netherworld, equal parts subtle shifting shimmer, grinding distorted dirge, and sparkling barely there ambience. No higher compliment can be paid than "how the hell do we describe these amazing sounds?!" And really, it seems that any cursory description could not possibly do justice to the amazing sonic world Growing have created.
On Color Wheel, the drift and rumble and shimmer of the past few releases is still present, but stretched out even further, in even stranger directions, some, on first listen sound almost 'wrong', like the almost cheesy panpipe sounds of "Cumulusless", but within seconds some internal logic reveals those sounds to be sort of kind of perfect, in their own skewed way, and then they begin to blur and become a gorgeously murky melodic drift. Other songs are stretched even more dramatically, songs and parts are peppered with strange production techniques and unusually distorted glitches, jagged edits and completely unlikely sequencing. The opening track "Fancy Period" begins as a cool ambient whir, high end melodies swirling and drfiting ever skyward, before the drone sort of buckles, and those high end meldoies become distinct peals, each fluttering weightless above a shuffling fuzzy stuttering rhythm, almost like a skipping Sunroof! cd. Track two, "Friendly Confines", is actually the most 'unfriendly' of the bunch, the core of the track a huge swath of downtuned distorted sludge guitar, tinkling melodies buried in the murk and mire, a shifting wall of rooooaaaarrr, like a slow motion mudslide, before the melodies are freed, the dirge drifts off and all that is left is a series of very Fripp / Eno guitar figures, repetetive and sweetly hypnotic. The record's closing track "Green Pasture" mines similar territory, a blissy barely there drone, peppered with stacatto bursts of blown out vacuum cleaner metal guitar, a super dynamic seesaw, between burbling dreaminess and massive SUNNO)))-like dirge. Quite possibley the coolest Growing track yet...
MPEG Stream: "Fancy Period"
MPEG Stream: "Green Pasture"
MPEG Stream: "Peace Offering"

GROWING Disconfirm / Horizon (The Social Registry) 7" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two brief experimental soundscapes from these AQ faves. No space rock or krautrock or any kind of rock actually here, this is mostly ambient drift, and strange sonic experimentalism, and the end result manages to sound quite strange and quite strangely pretty.
The A side resembles an ambient noise version of The Smith's "How Soon Is Now?" with a stuttering churning reverbed guitar riff, looped into a hypnotic rhythm, slowly transforming into a machinelike landscape, while over the top tumble playful fluttery FX drenched melodies and streaks and swooshes of feedback and metallic hum. The flipside is a series of haunting little sonic events, muted rhythmic thumps, gurgling underwater melodies, little high end squiggles, all very textural and murky, like some tiny alien machine crawling its way slowly up through the depths...

GROWING Dry Drunk On Woman / Residual Effects Of Inertia II (Nail In The Coffin) 7" 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Low level drones drenched in feedback and synth tones from the Olympia, WA duo known as Growing. Like a lo-fi Popol Vuh or midrange Earth, but with a dreamier edge via ambiguous vocalizations.

GROWING Dry Drunk On Woman b/w Residual Effects of Inertia II (Nail In the Coffin / Mega Blade) 7" 4.98
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GROWING His Return (Megablade) cd 13.98
Growing may be a rock band, but they're the sort of rock band that seems to just set the music in motion, letting it blossom and build, only intervening when necessary, allowing bass and guitar and vocals to interact organically, creating dense soundscapes, equal parts shimmery space rock, reverb drenched slow core, and dark rumbling drone. Three lengthy tracks, almost thirty minutes of space-y drone-y bliss. The first track is made up of warm snarls of distorted guitar, woven into huge expanses of thick ambient swirl, beneath majestic swaths of keening melody and subtle shuffling rattlesnake percussion. A strangely otherworldly tribal space drone, almost folky at times, with the melodies sounding like some alien bagpipe, but always lush and dense and druggy. Track two, "Freedom Towards Death" is the shortest and most song-like, with dreamy deadpan vocals buried beneath a chaotic smear of multi-tracked guitars and layer after layer of throbbing sludge and space-y swoosh. Sounds a bit like a good old fashioned pop song dipped in some Hawkwind and sprinkled with some Sunroof! The final track is a massive fifteen minute epic of slow growing, pulsing guitars, so incredibly thick and dense it sort of resonates right through your ears, through your whole body and into your soul. The kind of song we wish would go on forever. Like floating in the clouds, or drifting underwater, or sinking slowly through a million mile thick slab of billowy guitars. The track ends (sadly) amazingly with the sound becoming more and more blown out and distorted, until the guitar starts to fall apart, becoming cracked and crumbly until it sort of sputters out in a brief flicker of static and crackle. WOW.
MPEG Stream: "In The Shadow Of The Mountain"
MPEG Stream: "Freedom Towards Death"

GROWING His Return (Megablade) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now on vinyl!
Growing may be a rock band, but they're the sort of rock band that seems to just set the music in motion, letting it blossom and build, only intervening when necessary, allowing bass and guitar and vocals to interact organically, creating dense soundscapes, equal parts shimmery space rock, reverb drenched slow core, and dark rumbling drone. Three lengthy tracks, almost thirty minutes of space-y drone-y bliss. The first track is made up of warm snarls of distorted guitar, woven into huge expanses of thick ambient swirl, beneath majestic swaths of keening melody and subtle shuffling rattlesnake percussion. A strangely otherworldly tribal space drone, almost folky at times, with the melodies sounding like some alien bagpipe, but always lush and dense and druggy. Track two, "Freedom Towards Death" is the shortest and most song-like, with dreamy deadpan vocals buried beneath a chaotic smear of multi-tracked guitars and layer after layer of throbbing sludge and space-y swoosh. Sounds a bit like a good old fashioned pop song dipped in some Hawkwind and sprinkled with some Sunroof! The final track is a massive fifteen minute epic of slow growing, pulsing guitars, so incredibly thick and dense it sort of resonates right through your ears, through your whole body and into your soul. The kind of song we wish would go on forever. Like floating in the clouds, or drifting underwater, or sinking slowly through a million mile thick slab of billowy guitars. The track ends (sadly) amazingly with the sound becoming more and more blown out and distorted, until the guitar starts to fall apart, becoming cracked and crumbly until it sort of sputters out in a brief flicker of static and crackle. WOW.
MPEG Stream: "In The Shadow Of The Mountain"
MPEG Stream: "Freedom Towards Death"

GROWING Lateral (Social Registry) cd 9.98
Brooklyn-based ambient-drone duo Growing never fails to please the devoted. It could also easily be said that the duo has failed to truly diverge from their original starting point. Although, part of the charm of this sort of music is indulging in a process of creation that celebrates the difference and repetition within a given theme or concept; expanding or investigating a specific idea over a length of time. Thus, if you like Growing, you'll love this EP. All of the usual landmarks are here: a Nadja on opium meets some sort of Windy & Carl and Labradford hybrid, heavy filter manipulations, masked, aquatic tremolo and chorus leads, and full-on auto-pan attacks that completely embrace stereo dynamics. We've read that -- specifically within the ambient-drone scene -- Growing has been particularly reluctant to utilize computers, preferring to employ pedals and more organic looping techniques. Still, a quick listen to this release unearths enough digital-sounding distortion to make the listener wonder whether or not these two dronesters have finally caved in or not. Fans of long, drawn-out melodic landscapes or psychedelic explorations won't want to miss out on this one. Definitely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "First Contact"
MPEG Stream: "Lateral"