GROUPER - Way Their Crept

Composer Liz Harris was born in 1980 in West Marin, overlooking California's Pacific coast. Spiritually tied to the esoteric teachings of the Armenian mystic Georges Gurdjeff, in the early 2000s she embarked on a solo career, giving life to the project Grouper, a term previously used to describe the parents of the children at a US community she took part in for a while. Her first self-titled work (self-produced, 2005) was released in a limited edition, specifically a white sleevecase CD: what emerges is a rarefied ambient drone, packed with curious ideas, including dominant distortion and icy synths, held together by a genuinely dispersive attitude.
Worth noting is an early mastery of sonic layers – vaguely transcendental and well blended into the nocturnal atmosphere – foreshadowing the sound textures that would come to define what would shortly be considered her most ambitious album.

Indeed, that same year, Harris joined the independent, electronic and avant-garde label Free Porcupine Society, which produced works by Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof, Current 93 and 7 Year Rabbit Cycle.
It released the disorienting “Way Their Crept”, wrapped in a long, sinister suite with minimalist traits: structured like a drone–dark ambient record, the sounds presented expand into abstract movements, detailed by the mixing work of sound engineer Pete Swanson, founder of the industrial–noise band Yellow Swans, as well as keyboardist on the album Fabulous Muscles (2004) by the aforementioned Xiu Xiu.
The title–track, embroidered with a vocal arrangement yearning for sonic maximalism, whispers in the listener's ear, preparing them for a series of unexpected and engrossing sounds. It's followed by the microtonal “Hold a Desert, Feel It’s Hand”, the thunderous “Second Skin/Zombie Wind”, the embryonic “Sang Their Way” and so on.

The drawn-out execution, the distant echoes, the evocative atmospheric pull and the vivid imagery all mark “Way Their Crept”, considered by many to be Harris's true debut, as well as one of her finest works.

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21/10/2026