A stark, skeletal document of piano and voice. Recorded on a four-track in Portugal, it captures the sound of isolation, failed structures, and heavy rain.
It sounds like someone playing piano in the next room while a storm rages outside.
A stark, unblinking look at isolation that finds a strange, cold comfort in its own stillness.
Recorded primarily in 2011 during a residency in Aljezur, Portugal, Ruins represents a pivotal shift in Grouper's discography. While Liz Harris was previously known for the 'murky' and reverb-drenched textures of albums like Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, Ruins strips away the fog. Using only a portable 4-track, a stereo microphone, and an upright piano, Harris documented a period of intense isolation and hiking through local ruins. The album is famous for its 'environmental' honesty, including the sound of a microwave beep triggered by a power outage and the pervasive sound of frogs and rain. The final track, 'Made of Air,' serves as a bridge to her past, having been recorded in 2004. Critics, including those at AllMusic and Pitchfork, lauded the album for its devastating intimacy and its ability to turn 'mistakes' into essential components of its haunting atmosphere. It remains a high-water mark for 21st-century ambient-folk.
Put this on for
bare floorboards and a single lamp after everyone else has leftheavy rain hitting the roof while you wait for a kettle to boilthat specific silence following a conversation that ended too earlytracing the grain of an old wooden table in a rented roombreath visible in the air of an unheated housewatching a storm break over a coastline from a safe distancereading a letter from someone you no longer recognizemidnight walk where the only sound is your own heartbeat
Moments worth waiting for
the sharp, domestic intrusion of a microwave beep during a moment of intense piano fragility
the long, eleven-minute fade into pure hiss and distant thunder on the closing track
the audible mechanical thud of the piano pedals acting as the only rhythmic anchor
Sounds like
2014s production with a 2010s soul
Sits beside
The Plateaux of Mirror - Harold Budd & Brian Eno, Pink Moon - Nick Drake, Ravedeath, 1972 - Tim Hecker, For Emma, Forever Ago - Bon Iver
Lyrical territory
self_examination, love_lost, nature
03Deviation
Ruins · vs · Grouper
Artist
This Album
Piano
Instrumentation · ↑ +12% more than usual
On this album, piano sits about 12% more prominent than across the rest of the artist's catalogue.
