Kranky
Grouper is an irresistible force, but one that seems to become lighter and less substantial with each release. By that, I mean it is so ethereal in the true sense of the word that I am amazed it was even possible to catch it on tape.
The piano, be it notes or chords, seem to drift in the air, and you can almost see them receding into the atmosphere, but they are too sombre for dust motes somehow. The thought of dust seems somehow to frivolous, but Liz Harris‘s voice, double-tracked at times, escapes like smoke or vapour sneaking out of the cracks in windows, desperate to merge with anything else, anything but what is in this room.
I listen to some of the pieces here and feel that they would be a fitting soundtrack for an exhibition of Francesca Woodman photographs. There is that feeling in the whispers and ghostly sighs of one who is in the process of disappearing or of attempting to disappear; something that has some echoes in Lisa Germano‘s work, but here reaches a kind of ultimate conclusion, like the very last person left alive sitting at a piano trying to explain that feeling in sound. I can’t imagine where Liz can go from here, unless they discover a way of turning sound into that vapour that pours from electronic cigarettes. You could stick your head into that cloud of smoke, and fragments of heartbreaking vocal and gentle piano would insinuate their way into your brain before dissipating right there in front of you. This album, this tiny, delicate snippet of her heart, ends with the sound of a train moving into the distance, further and further until we are just gazing into empty silence long after it has gone. For me, that is a perfect analogy for Grid Of Points. You want to hang onto it, make it more real, give it more substance, but you can’t. That is not how it is meant to be, so we just have to accept it and love it for what it is.-Mr Olivetti-
