Grouper: "Call Across Rooms"

Recorded three years ago in Aljezur, Portugal, during an arts residency, Grouper‘s new song “Call Across Rooms” reeks of isolation. This time around, Liz Harris doesn’t even have her reverb pedals to keep her company; it’s just her voice and an upright piano, both recorded onto a portable 4-track through the same microphone. The music probes the edges of the room like sonar as Harris threads piano through her vocal melodies, occasionally emphasizing the end of a phrase with a splashed-in chord.

The song, the first taste from the forthcoming Ruins, may be the clearest we’ve heard Grouper to date, but it’s still hidden behind a few layers of secrecy. Harris sings in a lithe whisper, her lyrics mostly obscured by her piano and its echoes. A few pointed lines come through, like “our love is nothing” followed by “maybe we’ll figure it out.” Speaking to Vogue, Harris revealed that the song is both “a letter I wrote for someone I loved and could not get along with” and “a letter to myself, as aspiration to love better.”


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