Grouper is Liz Harris, artist and musician from Portland, Oregon.
Comes Ruins (2014), Grouper’s latest following 2013’s The Man Who Died in His Boat. With the exception of the last track, “Made of Air,” Ruins was recorded in Aljezur, Portugal, in 2011 and released by Chicago’s Kranky Records on Halloween of 2014.
As voiced by the artist herself,the album was “recorded pretty simply, with a portable 4-track, Sony stereo mic and an upright piano.”
Melancholic. Penetrating. Remarkable.—These and like adjectives root in Ruins.
On the opening track, “Made of Metal,” Harris captures sharp sounds of the highly active life living outside her temporary residence in Aljezur. Sounds like what came before us: copious amounts of insects, frogs and birds all hungrily calling into the heavy night.
Composition-wise, Harris envelops listeners by expertly using a few, yet powerful, elements. But a handful of simple, pyre-like piano notes and one quiet guitar partnered with some tape loops and Harris’ hushed vocals, fill ears with somber tones.
The ache of inner emotional truth in the light of how things truly are, produce in Harris’ voice a wintry tone; painful remnants of passing love pall the power of her barefaced words with an icy fragility, as when in “Clearing,” the voice behind the words, “Every time I see you I have to pretend I don’t,” sounds as if singing the line is nearly too much; as if the singer isn’t just singing but experiencing anew the truth expressed through the words before us on tape, re-living ruins. Such also is the case in the dusky drift of knotted honesty and regret in the line: “Sometimes I wish that none of this had happened.”
It’s a perfect blend, Harris’ fragile voice and those skeletal piano notes. They sound inseparable, and the piano, though sounding as affected as Harris, provides just as strong a voice heard on the album as any other, even taking over instrumentals “Labyrinth” and “Holofernes.”
Though Harris’ words often sink from clarity deeply into the sound, their meaning masked in tone is as clear as the drops of rain falling from the thunderstorm that closes “Holding.”
Each track of the album runs its listener farther from private emotional turrets crumbling inside physical structures to the eleven-minute, disintegrative ending that is “Made of Air.” No words to anchor the feeling, no distinctive voice (guitar, piano) that so characterized the tracks prior, but sound and sound only—a pushing, pendulous, free flight to silence.
By its ethereal drift and telling title, “Made of Air” sounds the course of the elemental transition/decomposition of relationships, love and structures to a formless expanse, the great weight of ruins cast.
Yet, for all its weight in sound and feeling—seemingly filled by the inspiration of place and pain—, the overall languid feeling of Ruins does little to create any tension for listeners, filling ears instead with tranquility like a sleepy white-haired death from the bed.
Little fight from the ear as “Made of Metal” pumps out its final, and hard, heartbeat before the piano-etch of “Clearing” abruptly shifts tonality and Harris’ words, “Open up the window, try and let the light out” cuts a path through the aural brush to songs of grey stillness, bright pain, terrible longing and lonely beauty.
Self-proclaimed and rarely challenged “Kings of Budget Rock™,” (yes, you read correctly, that is most certainly a trademark symbol), The Mummies came out of a garage in California to play/bomb dives in the late 80’s and early 90’s with their surf/punk/garage rocking assault and formidable presence. These mono-stars rolled out of their tombs to gigs in a classic ‘63 Pontiac ambulance. They arrived swathed in full mummy garb, decrepit, cranked and ready to lash ears with hard and dirty grooves.
But don’t freak out. They’re not after your soul. The Mummies don’t give a shit about anything but the tune. Especially you. Looky here: “The Mummies are not your friends. The Mummies don’t tweet, twat, connect, share, like, friend or give a damn.” —That particular response of theirs to the social media maelstrom of the twenty-first century is culled from their official website, as is this, their truncated biography: “The Mummies were a stupid band. This is their stupid Website. You cared about them enough to get this far. Now you are stupid too. That’s the Mummies’ curse.”
They’ve released some albums—The Mummies: Play Their Own Records (1992), Never Been Caught (1992), amongst others. Bootlegs have surfaced. A few splits and numerous singles have been released, all in the early to late 90’s and mostly through the Estrus and Telestar labels, (dis)respectively. All the while the compact disc format The Mummies have left to the other monsters, and somewhat angrily at that—the words “fuck C.D.s” are to be found riding the covers of a few of their records. No tender resolve marks that truculent stamp.
Or does it?
Time pushes all to the edge, even The Mummies. The dawn of the twenty-first century saw something improbably weird stagger out of the shady unknown: a compressed collection of fuzzy jams documenting modern day encounters with some bitchin’ ancient anger. So it is, a CD release bearing the name of: The Mummies! Yes, a spectacularly lo-fi punch to the ear, Death By Unga Bunga (2003).
The songs found on Death By Unga Bunga traverse The Mummies’ turbulent recording career, with many of the well-known choice cuts from their scratchy, lo-fi oeuvre represented. For better or worse (depends how you feel about the sound quality of the records mostly), such gems as “That Girl,” “Stronger Than Dirt,” Food, Sickles & Girls,” and “(You Must Fight To Live) On The Planet Of The Apes,” underwent (suffered?) a technological upgrade.
If there’s anything The Mummies love more than vengeance and trouble, its vinyl, surely. But like their patience with you and the rest of your race, records on the market bearing their name are nearly nonexistent, not to say that they were ever plentiful. The few left and up for sale don’t come cheap. In fact, your budget-rock fix may cost a pretty penny, and like a good joke, that’s awfully funny and a trifle sad.
That being known, for all its all-over-the-place sound quality, the zany motley that is Death By Unga Bunga is no less a pleasing assimilation of tracks from the band’s back catalog. It’s crass (“In & Out”), angry (“Die!”), sordidly amusing (“Dangerman”), at times hilarious (“The House On The Hill”)—a solid introduction to the band’s aggressive, DIY, no bullshit, fuck-the-music-industry ethos.
Take out a loan, get the LP’s, or have this and get a taste for some fine free-and-easy-who-gives-a-shit-lets-just-play freedom.
Like the swans of Socrates singing for the joy of cutting their corporeal ties, Karen Dalton too sang herself smiling softly into some kind of easeful, transitive state. While performing, the singer often retreated inwardly behind closed eyelids, leaving her audience spellbound by the quiet, sustained rapture that was her voice.
Dalton was one with a voice so captivating others felt it incumbent upon them to commit her vocals to record, despite her oftentimes ardent protestations, ever championing the act of crafting her art over that of preserving it; one whose voice could wrap up a suffering listener with the mollifying impression of warmth and understanding; one who with song conjured woebegone souls blighted by human cruelties like unrequited love, shipwrecked friendship foundering in the swells of misunderstanding, failure to achieve one’s chief desire and any other festering et cetera that might bog one down deeply.
In short, Dalton evoked despondency, alchemized it in the act of singing, sang the blues—and she did so with such moving power that twenty years after her death, as well as over fifty years since she began singing in front of audiences, listeners are still hunting her recordings and searching for unreleased gems bearing her inimitable imprint.
Like the rest of us, Dalton wasn’t here for very long. Despite the steadily increasing appetite now for what little recording she did decades ago, Dalton did not leave posterity a name that would garner much attention when she died on the streets of New York City in the winter of 1993. Considered largely under-heard even now, Dalton was, in the early 1960’s, far less recognized for her indubitable talents—amongst the public, that is.
You might know her for her influence on other artists, particularly those who bear the glow of fame, like Bob Dylan, Nick Cave, and Lenny Kaye, all of which sing her praises and commend her influence on their creative output. Dalton was no stranger to her contemporary fellow singers and songwriters as well, these too not failing to commend her artistry with words of reverent affection, or, as in the case of Fred Neil, some curt and truthful words of simplicity: “Her voice is so unique that to describe it would take a poet. All I can say is that she sure can sing the shit out of the blues,” said Neil, whose song, “Blues On The Ceiling,” a staple in Dalton’s set, is known largely for her unique rendition of it.
While she roamed the West coast (Colorado and California in particular), performing the songs she would later be praised for making her own—“Katie Cruel,” “Ribbon Bow,” “Green Rocky Road,” “In the Evening,” amongst others—Dalton attracted a stellar reputation amidst singers, songwriters, and listeners alike. These included David Crosby, Dick Weissman (The Journeymen), and Joe Loop (co-owner of infamous folk club The Attic), who respected Dalton not only for her talent for interpreting the songs of others—Fred Neil, Huddie Ledbetter, Ray Charles, Jelly Roll Morton and Booker T. Jones, just to name a few—but also for who she was: a strong-minded, caring woman who abhorred overt ignorance, be it directed towards herself or those in her protective company. “Sweet Mother K.D.” they called her.
“My mother was the kind of woman who would scream at bank tellers” recalls Dalton’s daughter, Abralyn Baird, in an interview with NPR, calling attention perhaps to a quick temper fueled by a domineering will rarely challenged, but when challenged, strongly resistant to what she perceived wrong or untruthful.
Peter Stampfel (The Holy Modal Rounders), in an essay composed for the CD re-release of Dalton’s first “proper” album, It’s So Hard To Tell Who’s Going To Love You Best (1969), reminisces about Dalton’s protectiveness exemplified by her standing up to unwarranted cruelty in the form of noxious thrill-seekers chasing down both she and a friend (on horseback) with a car. Stampfel writes: “Karen picked up a small tree branch and took off on horseback hell-for-leather in pursuit of the car, which she forced to a halt by beating on its windshield with her branch . . . Karen made the driver get out and apologize.”
Musically, Dalton’s aesthetic often matched that of her personality. She was never wholly comfortable performing on stage, refusing even to leave her dressing room for a string of European tour dates during the latter half of her singing career in support of her second and final studio album, In My Own Time (1971)—a horrendous experience for both she and the musicians journeying with her.
Though the virago side of Dalton, when present, was many times enflamed by her alcohol and drug use, friends and contemporaries recall in her essentially a strikingly beautiful, lithe woman of granite presence and mysteriousness who could render an audience attentive by the sheer dominance of her mesmerizing voice and delicate finger-picking style, but, conversely, one who, despite the surface appearance of masterful ease and felicity, preferred not to be where she was—on stage.
Stampfel remembers Dalton describing her ideal venue as one to match that of her intrinsic comfort created and sustained while jamming with friends—her living room, a place of warmth where “[s]he could just play music . . . and (magically) there would be a large audience, rapt, silent, and enthralled, which Karen could then totally ignore.” This marked adversity to the stage carried over tenfold to the recording studio, where too many hands in the deal manipulating her sound fueled her uncomfortable and boisterous mien. As Baird recalls, “She wanted to have her sound . . . That’s what they told her they wanted to hear, and then she’d get in the studio, and they’re like, ‘Well, we’ll just add a couple tracks to this.’ And she’s like, ‘No.’ She’d get furious.”
Years before Dalton even entered the studio, came the precursory Green Rocky Road (2008), officially released some forty-five years after its making in 2008. Green Rocky Road was recorded privately by Dalton and her close friend, Joe Loop, while ensconced in a cottage in Boulder, CO in 1962/1963; it’s a home-made record recorded on two tracks with Dalton picking banjo and playing guitar on every one except “In the Evening,” in which fellow musician Richard Tucker plays guitar. The song selection constitutes those Dalton made essential in her set, songs centering on the suffering female characters her voice brought to life in “Katie Cruel,” “Little Margaret,” and “Ribbon Bow.”
With consideration of the fact that Dalton never gave interviews about her work and/or artistic principles, alongside her choice to record independently, it would appear that Green Rocky Road was the album Dalton yearned to make—one entirely on her own terms, in her own way.
Green Rocky Road presents a side of Dalton even lesser known than what’s captured on It’s So Hard . . . and In My Own Time. Heard here is the living-room intimacy and inspiring passion of musicality that moved Dalton to sing in the first place, as she sings the songs of those who came before her, bearing tradition in her own distinctive way with a new voice demonstrative and intuitively brilliant.
Rife with interruption (a ringing phone; guest appearances—Dalton holds a conversation with her mother, Evelyn Cariker, before beginning “In the Evening”—) and glitches of faulty, makeshift recording equipment, Green Rocky Road is by no means a “proper” record, but, arguably, it is for that reason alone that it is so special in the handful of recordings left behind from this incredibly talented and inspiring singer. It’s as close to comfort as Dalton ever got with us being in the room while she sang.
Grouper is Liz Harris, artist and musician from Portland, Oregon.
West Publishing 
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