Grouper is Liz Harris, the San Francisco-born, Astoria, Oregon-based artist whose tape-saturated ambient and dream pop feels transmitted from somewhere just out of reach. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill (2008) is the classic; Ruins (2014) strips it down even further. Dig into Grouper vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
Liz Harris, performing as Grouper, was born in San Francisco in 1980. She is currently based in Astoria, Oregon. She has been associated with Kranky Records (the experimental ambient label) and her own Yellow Electric imprint throughout her catalog. Her work has been widely cited as one of the defining contemporary ambient and dream pop aesthetics. She has also been involved in the band Mirroring (with Tiny Vipers' Jesy Fortino) and the project Helen.
Grouper's sound combines ambient, dream pop, drone, slowcore, lo-fi indie, and experimental folk with extremely intimate, often distant-feeling vocal delivery and atmospheric tape-saturated production. Her work bridges contemporary ambient music with intimate singer-songwriter traditions.
Kranky pressings of the Grouper catalog have been issued in multiple color variant editions and limited deluxe pressings. Multiple anniversary editions of Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill have been released.
Listeners new to Grouper typically start with Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill (2008) or Ruins (2014).
