Grouper is the solo project for electro-acoustic ambient/noise musician Liz Harris, of Portland, Oregon.
She recently performed at the Issue Project Room on June 4th in Brooklyn, NY. Here’s a review of the show by Christien Lauro:

“On a humid Spring evening, Liz Harris (aka Grouper) played two sets in Issue Project Room’s stuffy main space. The first set included selections from her 2005 long player, Way Their Crept and the second consisted of a piece commissioned for The New Roaratoria series, a project that features contemporary artists creating new compositions that utilize the stunningly versatile computer controlled 15-channel speaker system unique to the venue.

Legend has it that most of Way Their Crept was recorded with bulky old analogue keyboards, which made performing tracks from the album on tour cumbersome at best. Issue Project Room removed that obstacle by providing a dusty old keyboard for Ms. Harris to run through her gauzy high fidelity defying pedal loops and hissing mass of portable cassette decks. With most of the subdued audience sitting on the coccyx crushing floor, the lights dimmed to a murky gray and a wall sized film projection of multiple candle flames flickering in and out of focus began.

This environment perfectly accompanied Ms. Harris’ instantly recognizable gorgeously creepy face melting ambience as she made her way through several tracks from Way Their Crept and even snuck in a performance of “Disengaged”, the opening track from the superb 2008 LP Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill.

Ms. Harris seemed to pour out notes rather than play them; the sound was so thick it made the already close air in the room seem positively adhesive. She stoically sat behind the old keyboard slowly plunking keys and quietly cooing vocalizations into the microphone without ever addressing or looking at the audience. At several points during the set she bent down somewhat self consciously to adjust her array of pedals and flip or change cassettes. During “Disengaged” she seemed so intent on getting a very specific sound out of one of her pedals that she repeatedly interrupted her own vocals. None of this seemed to disrupt the rapt attention she received from the audience who were either too respectful or drugged by the atmosphere to make any sound until she concluded the first set and the lights came back up, which prompted appropriately quiet but enthusiastic applause.

Ms. Harris returned after a short intermission and was assisted in replacing the arcane equipment used during the initial set, with a small folding table’s worth of new fangled electronic devices. The lights dimmed and the film began again and the audience was treated to a few minutes of technical problems before the Roaratoria commissioned piece began in earnest. Ms. Harris, seated at the small table, twiddled knobs and urged the speaker system to slowly encircle the audience with a subtly changing series of dense drones in a syrupy-super-slow-motion-Leslie-Amplifier effect as she gradually faded extremely delicate melodies in and out of the center of the sound mix.

Sitting in the dark with eyes closed and the vaguely ominous soundscape swirling slowly above their heads it was very difficult not to drift off into an uneasy sleep filled with simultaneously frighteningly dark and heartbreakingly beautiful images. The sound abruptly stopped and the lights returned as a very quiet “Thank you,” was heard and the audience slowly regained consciousness and applauded. As everyone shuffled dazedly in the vaporous Friday evening along the Gowanus Canal, one attendee said, “I need her to do that in my apartment every night right before I go to sleep!” Amen and pleasant dreams.”