Liz Harris, who does business as Grouper, strips away much of the effects-laden gauze of her earlier work on this, her third proper album. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill is ethereal and hazy, but never overly so. Two songs reference sleep in their titles, three water. Some strong-ass melodies and actual songs always lurked deep inside-- or perhaps underneath-- Grouper's music, but you had to work to hear them underneath layers of sonic muck. Here, those elements are more prominent, and there's something simple and beautiful but also a little bit obscure going on. Laconically strummed acoustic guitars and gently plunked pianos serve as the primary instruments, abetted by ambient washes and echo boxes (which this time are not all set to 11).
Released earlier this year, the record has already been compared to classic releases from the British label 4AD, especially their flagship act the Cocteau Twins. This makes sense in that both have subdued, minor-key melodies. And both feature whispery-voiced female singers whose words are tough to pick out. Beyond that, though, it's about as exact as comparing KISS to the Ramones-- both those bands were loud and made records in the mid-1970s and had lead singers who were dudes, but that's about it. This remarkable album is actually what I personally always wanted 4AD records to sound like, only they never quite delivered the hazy pleasures their beautiful sleeve art promised (with the exception of Kurt Ralske's rock band Ultra Vivid Scene). Dead Deer is druggy and sexy and arty and pretty, but never pretentious.
Others have made similarly reverb-drenched, pastoral psychedelic pop before. In terms of contemporary musicians, the work of the Portland, Ore.-based compatriots Eva Saelens (aka Inca Ore), Charalambides co-founder Christina Carter, and Honey Owens (aka Valet) might spring to mind. Inca Ore's music is far heavier and murkier, however. And Christina Carter is more firmly working within a psych-folk idiom, while Valet is much more on a bluesy, guitar-based trip. Let someone else criticize me for making my own inexact comparisons to sounds of yore: A handful of these songs bring to mind the criminally forgotten records that Lida Husik recorded for Shimmy Disc in the early 90s. On "When We Fall" and "Invisible", Harris sounds like Vashti Bunyan singing in an echoey hallway. Others bear some resemblance to the band Clay Allison (who later became Opal and, in a different configuration, Mazzy Star) ca. their 1984 Fell From the Sun EP. And "Traveling Through a Sea" recalls the work of the always echo-friendly New York-based singer-songwriter Azalia Snail.
I had the best experience playing this album on a long drive the other week. It's easy to apply whatever music you're listening at any given moment to your surroundings; when the music plays and you're by yourself, you can imagine it as the soundtrack to the imaginary movie you star in. Anyway, here I was driving in the morning past farmland north of Eugene, Ore. This would not be the most fascinating movie, OK. But I kept seeing these small dirt storms form out in the unplowed fields to the left while the lovely "Fishing Bird (Empty Gutted In The Evening Breeze)" played on repeat. I'm not sure this album is the perfect road trip music for everyone-- I'd certainly caution against playing it late at night when you're already sleepy, or operating other heavy machinery as it plays-- but since these songs seem to appear and then vanish into the air, the mini-tornadoes gathering themselves together lazily out of the wind and the dirt seemed the ideal, hypnotizing accompaniment.
