Ruins By Liz Harris Analysis

Liz Harris is the minimalist, ambient artist better known as Grouper. Her tenth studio album, Ruins, is a bare, raw, and hushed work that was almost entirely made in 2011 on a trip she took to Aljezur, Portugal. It was recorded on a portable 4-track, and one of the only instruments used is an upright piano. While living there, Harris found inspiration in the physical state of her surroundings. On walks, she came across the ruins of old estates and a nearby village. She describes the album as “a document. A nod to that daily walk. Failed structures. Living in the remains of love.” Ruins is emotional, a quiet anger, and a depleted form of what once was.

“Made of Metal” opens up with sounds of crickets and frogs; Harris brings you directly to the source of her time in Portugal. “Clearing” introduces Harris with her omnipresent piano and achieves an immense feeling of dread. It’s a heavy song weighted in a deep, yet subdued anger. Harris doesn’t deliver you her feelings easily. Her barely audible vocals make you listen closely, stretching your ear to hear her woes behind the piano. Her lyrics are the equivalent to discovering an old VHS home recording. You’ll understand the setting and roughly determine the time frame, but there are scratches and dust on
You can practically hear when she opens and closes her lips. This unembellished recording style creates a nurturing element that is unique to Grouper. On the eight-minute “Holding,” Harris slightly lets her guard down as her vocals inch toward the surface. It’s a moment of clarity and enlightenment as she struggles to contain it: “I hear you calling and I want to go straight into the valleys of your arms and disappear there.” She is searching for permanence in a field of decay. As “Holding” is the last song she recorded in 2011, she ends her time in Portugal in a state of strength, but