View Larger
Rate it!
Avg: 4.0 (225 ratings)
- Date Released: June 10, 2008
- Genre: Electronic
- Style: Electronic Ambient
- Label: Type / Morr Music GBR
A hazy, opaquely beautiful album of sighs and drones
-
We Say...
When musicians rely heavily on reverb, it usually ends up coming off one of two ways: as a mask to hide their own musical shortcomings or a controlled aesthetic choice that changes the ordinary into something spectacular. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill is a remarkable example of the latter. Grouper albums typically come cloaked in a certain amount of transformative ugliness: elegance and production clarity are sacrificed to create a deliberately ethereal voice. With each release under her Grouper moniker, Liz Harris has expanded her range as both a singer/songwriter and a sound artist. With Dragging, conventional approaches — vocal melodies, traditional instrumentation — that were previously and consciously submerged have been allowed to surface.
Which goes a long way to explain why Dragging is the most focused and accessible Grouper outing to date. The major difference is simple: guitar and vocals, while still draped in effects, are clearer and more upfront. Harris’s new, less opaque methods (most successful on "Heavy Water / I'd Rather Be Sleeping") let the perfect amount of light shine through the trees. There is a dark forest of sound here, but not much to be afraid of. These breathy, ghostly incantations over repetitive acoustic strumming provide a secure map of the terrain with mostly coherent lyrics and distinguishable song structures, while the remaining songs veer off course just enough to keep things interesting. The title track is swaddled in delay and detuned electric guitar, and on "Wind and Snow" the composition drifts into an almost complete wash of feedback and soft focus. Start-to-finish, Dragging a Dead Deer manages to dodge any kind of simple classification: Dark folk? Ambient? Experimental? Yes, no and always — in the best possible way. -
They Say...
Liz Harris' first two Grouper albums, Way Their Crept and Wide, consisted mostly of layers of her pristine vocals blanketed in drones, reverb, and distortion until they blurred into a blissful, and sometimes eerie, haze. That haze lifts ever so slightly on Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, letting more melody, more structured songs, and even a few phrases emerge from the ether. Fragile acoustic and electric guitars and the occasional keyboard also bring this album more down to earth than Grouper's earlier work, but the music never feels stifled or limited -- if anything, the added structure lets these songs take flight and reach peaks of beauty that Wide and Way Their Crept only glimpsed. Harris' voice is especially spine-tingling on "Stuck," where her gorgeous harmonies only need gentle strumming to support their ebb and flow. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill's soft, intricate layers have their roots in late-'80s/early-'90s dream pop (and the work of the Cocteau Twins and early His Name Is Alive in particular -- Home Is in Your Head could be this album's great-great-grandmother), but Grouper's take is looser and more organic; there's a reason many of the song titles feature nature imagery ("Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping," "Traveling Through a Sea"). Dragging a Dead Deer also shows more musical range than Harris' previous work: "Disengaged," which introduces the album with blasts of static that suggest wind and waves, and the wistful "Invisible" fall closest to Wide and Way Their Crept's drifting approach, while "Fishing Bird (Empty Jutted in the Evening Breeze)" and "A Cover Over" boast distinct verses and choruses as well as the rest of the album's otherworldly atmosphere. This is also Grouper's most emotionally wide-ranging work, covering the electric lullaby "When We Fall" to the slightly ominous shimmer of the title track. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill offers moments that are just as memorable as the entire album, and all of them are subtly, but stunningly, beautiful.
“ The indie iTunes — Hardcore music fans are migrating to eMusic, the iTunes Music Store's cheaper, cooler cousin.”
Rolling Stone
eMusic Tip
Paid downloads are counted towards an album discount but free downloads are not.
COMPLETE FOR FREE!
You can download the rest of the tracks from this album for free! Just click the Complete Album button.
We’re sorry this album can only be downloaded using paid subscription download credits.
We recommend you Save it for Later by clicking the Save for Later button shown just above this message. For a list of related albums you can download right now, check out these recommendations.
We'll give you 12 additional free credits to download this album and start your paid subscription.
Get 12 bonus credits on us if you download this album. Sweet!
| 01. |  |
Disengaged |
4:16 |
|
| 02. | |
Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping |
2:53 |
|
| 03. | |
Stuck |
5:59 |
|
| 04. | |
When We Fall |
2:07 |
|
| 05. | |
Traveling Through A Sea |
4:23 |
|
| 06. | |
Fishing Bird (Empty Gutted In The Evening Breeze) |
3:51 |
|
| 07. | |
Invisible |
3:55 |
|
| 08. | |
I'm Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill |
2:21 |
|
| 09. | |
A Cover Over |
2:48 |
|
| 10. | |
Wind And Snow |
4:30 |
|
| 11. | |
Tidal Wave |
5:35 |
|
| 12. | |
We've All Gone To Sleep |
3:03 |
|
12 Total Tracks, 45:41 Total Length
Loading...
Playlists If you like Grouper, check out these member playlists
Explore music recommended by Grouper fans
Credits
- Timothy Stollenwerk - Mastering
Choose from over 7 million
music downloadseMusic features legendary and emerging artists in every genre: classic rock to classical,indie to international, soundtracks to spiritual, jazz to country and many more.
MP3 downloads work on any digital media player
With eMusic, you OWN your music without any restrictions. Burn music to a CD, play it on your computer, mobile phone or any digital media player - including iPod®, Zune® and Walkman®.
Songs available for 50¢ or less
eMusic subscriptions start at just $11.99 a month for 24 downloads - that's just 50¢ per song! And it gets better from there - our plans go as low as 42¢ per song!
Music Discovery
eMusic is about discovery. We make finding new music fun again with music recommendations from our award-winning team of music experts, member playlists and new music features.
Cancel anytime
With all the great music and site features we're pretty sure you will love eMusic. If not, no problem. You can cancel at any time and keep the music you have downloaded.
© 1992 - 2010 All Media Guide, LLC