Grouper: Violet Replacement
GUEST BLOGGER: GRACE LEHMAN
Ambient music lovers can take heart that Grouper – the project of Portland musician Liz Harris is back, with a new album released last month. Violet Replacement out for purchase now is another masterly lesson in everything that is great about electronic music currently. Since 2005 Harris has released a series of LPs, CDRs and tapes into on labels like Type, Room40 and now, this latest recording is available through her own YELLOWELECTRIC label.
Dark, ghostly sounds – eerie noises and ethereal floatiness are omnipresent in Harris’ new outing. As with most of her output to date, the use of tape loops, field recordings and submerged atmospherics lends a really dream like quality at the one extreme and the manifestation of substance abuse at the other, and this album is no different – additionally the notion of adding Wurlitzer loops and vocal tracks from Liz’s Grouper archives are mixed, spliced and processed live from an array of Dictaphones and tape players.
Out of Time and Out of Space
Emotionally resonant music that exists only in whatever time and space you happen to be in, Violet Replacement is a completely fluid experience that is at once calming, relaxing and inspiring. Liz Harris is taking the album on tour at the moment; this is something which she is not always at ease doing, in the past she has confessed to being a homebody. It will get its debut airings throughout Europe over the coming weeks and months – she’s just completed dates in the UK, Ireland and Germany and also played gigs in Sweden and Denmark. The album has been really well received wherever it’s been played and has had rave reviews.
