Fruit from the Poison Tree: The Ten Best Songs by Grouper

In his review of Grouper’s new album Shade, Chris Richards of the Washington Post claimed that the songs were “easy to feel but hard to remember.” He didn’t mean it as an insult–earlier in the review, he called the album “magnetic”–but there’s a whiff of damning by faint praise in the way he finishes the article. “Grouper[‘s] music doesn’t seem to concern itself with being noticed, or even enjoyed, but it’s out there, and at a bare minimum, it affirms life.”

One one level, this is fair enough. Grouper (aka Liz Harris) has been making music for over fifteen years, from drone to psych-folk to piano balladry, and most of the time she sounds like she’s performing for an audience of one. Her music is deliberately bleary and obscure, as though it’s being viewed through a window blotted by rain. She sings frequently, but it’s sometimes difficult to tell if there are lyrics at all, let alone what those lyrics are. Some listeners might find it difficult to engage with music that refuses to fight for their attention.

But many listeners do engage, and they are endlessly rewarded. When you’re on Grouper’s wavelength, her music doesn’t feel like it was made for no one: it feels like it was made for you, and only you. Each song has another plaintive melody or lyrical fragment that wounds you, and you can’t imagine anyone else being wounded in quite the same way. Grouper has gone viral on TikTok and been featured on Mare of Easttown, and yet her music still feels like a shared secret, something you’ll find when you’re ready.

While Grouper’s music has some through lines (those angelic vocals, plenty of reverb,) it’s hard to make a greatest-hits that plays like a full album might–you can’t mistake a song from Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill for a song from Ruins. All the same, the release of Shade allows us to take stock of this wonderful artist’s discography and name ten of her most essential songs.

10. “I’m Clean Now” (from Paradise Valley)

Two years after Grouper released Ruins, and two years before she would release Grid of Points, she was considerate enough to tide us over with Paradise Valley. The EP consists of two songs, both of which will appear on this list, and both of which use an electric guitar instead of Harris’ more typical acoustic. “I’m Clean Now” sounds like its title: an arpeggio as clear and fresh as a brook chimes in the background while Harris murmurs and sighs. The lyrics are more verbose and poetic here, describing Harris climbing “to the top of a poisonous valley,” but the music couldn’t be more simple and pure: it’s the sound of a headache dissipating.

9. “She Loves Me That Way” (from A I A: Alien Observer)

The A I A duo, Alien Observer and Dream Loss, find Grouper at her dreamiest and most abstract. Synth drones blanket the mix in moonlight, Robin Guthrie-esque guitars swirl with gothic majesty, and a chorus of Liz Harrises harmonize in a sea of reverb. “She Loves Me That Way” is the most lyric-forward of the bunch, but you still need a lyrics sheet to follow along. No matter: the music evokes the tenderness and intimacy of the lyrics. “She Loves Me That Way” is hushed and haunted like snowfall in the dead of night, but Harris has someone to keep her warm. “The morning passes/we’re hardly tired/your light will help me.”

8. “Living Room” (from The Man Who Died in His Boat)

Recorded around the same time as Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, The Man Who Died in His Boat feels like a darker companion to that album. The autumn sunlight that occasionally beamed through Deer’s clouds is less obvious here, and even the lighter songs are gentle yet firm mementos mori (the album’s title comes from a childhood memory of an empty boat washing ashore.) The stark, acoustic “Living Room” is the album’s closer, and its relative clarity only makes it hit harder. Singing in a lower register than usual, Harris sounds truly exhausted, ground down by the effort it takes just to exist. “It’s getting harder and harder to fake/Acting like everything is in its place.”

7. “Unclean Mind” (from Shade)

Grouper’s trend towards clarity started with Ruins and has culminated, for now, with Shade. There’s still plenty of reverb and tape hiss on some songs, but on others Harris comes closer than ever to a certain girl-and-a-guitar immediacy. On “Unclean Mind,” the album’s standout, Harris’ strummed guitar is brought up in the mix, and her lyrics are more audible than usual. It could fit on a playlist with Phoebe Bridgers or Julien Baker, due to both its sound and its capacity for ripping your heart out. The lyrics should hit home for anyone desperate for love while doubting whether they deserve it in the first place. “Rearrange me,” Harris pleads, and in the moment you understand how she could want such a thing.

6. “Headache” (from Paradise Valley)

The other song on Paradise Valley, “Headache” provides the storm for “I’m Clean Now” to clear up. The warm hum of a bass gives way to the sluggish chug of an electric guitar, its hazy torpor bringing to mind slowcore legends like Low. The melodies are as dreamy and lullaby-esque as ever, but the lyrics are darker than ever. Harris describes a story from her mother about walking out deep into the ocean–not to commit suicide, just to explore the horizon. It’s the kind of thing someone who feels trapped might do, and Harris certainly sounds like she’s unable to move. But there’s a warmth to this song that makes lines like “error lies in hoping” and “why does love keep letting me down?” go down a little easier.

5. “Fishing Bird (Empty Gutted in the Evening Breeze)” (from Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill)

The album cover for Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill is a picture of Liz Harris as a young girl in the woods, dressed in a witch’s costume for Halloween. It should be a picture of sweet autumn nostalgia, but there’s something foreboding about it. Harris stands slightly off-center, staring somewhere to her left, the brim of her witch’s hat casting a shadow over her already-dour expression. Sticks and branches obscure the camera, giving the disquieting impression that the photo was taken by someone hiding in a bush. And yet, I look at that picture and I fondly remember past Halloweens anyway.

That’s the essence of Dead Deer, and of “Fishing Bird” in particular. There is an element of the grotesque in the way she emphasizes that the bird is “empty gutted,” using the blunt, ugly “gutted” instead of, say, “bellied.” And there are uneasy melodic turns at the end of some lines, as though Harris is trailing off in worry. But that doesn’t take away the stark beauty of Harris’ voice, the cozy strum of her guitar, or the longing melody of “how long can you hold your breath?” Nature is beautiful because nature is ugly.

4. “Holding” (from Ruins)

Ruins hurts, and Ruins heals. Recorded during a residency in Portugal (save for the ambient closing track), it’s an album made almost entirely of sparse, shattered piano ballads. The reverb is still there, but it’s left to echo off of nothing but an upright piano and Harris’ near-whisper of a voice. Solitude saturates every second of this album, from its sound to its subject matter, and if you’re not prepared it can hit you in places you didn’t even know were vulnerable. But there’s beauty, and even comfort, in solitude: daily walks, perfect stillness, a steaming mug of tea, and a detente with yourself.

“Holding,” the penultimate song on Ruins, is the conclusion of the album’s narrative, such as it is. After three other songs detailing a breakup, we’re left with this muted, aching expression of regret. “You only wanted holding, and I let my structure fail you,” Harris sings. “There’s nothing left to hold,” she eventually concludes. But the music is gentle, almost reassuring: there’s no tension, only a bittersweet piano melody and Harris’ angelic harmonies. Call it the acceptance stage if you want, or perhaps it’s just someone learning to live with herself again.

3. “Poison Tree” (from Inca Ore/Grouper)

Grouper is somewhere between Life Without Buildings and The Caretaker when it comes to artists you’d expect to go viral. But for better or worse, TikTok moves in mysterious ways. The origin is murky, but apparently the late rapper XXXTentacion (who also sampled Grouper’s “Invisible” on “UGLY”) recommended an obscure song from early in her discography called “Poison Tree,” and a couple of years after his death it became somewhat popular on TikTok. (Only somewhat, of course–you’re not likely to see Charli D’Amelio featuring this one.)

It’s a happy coincidence that “Poison Tree” is one of Grouper’s best songs. One of her more lyric-centric offerings, “Poison Tree” is inspired by William Blake’s poem “A Poison Tree,” where the narrator’s hate for their enemy is used to create a toxic tree with killer fruit. But there’s no vitriol in Grouper’s version; in fact, she longs for it, because at least then she would be feeling something. “Oh, beautiful poison tree/Let your power grow in me,” she sings. With its minor-key synth arpeggio and Harris’ muted vocal performance, “Poison Tree” is as evocative a depiction of catatonic depression as you’ll ever hear. No wonder TikTok teens like it.

2. “Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping” (from Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill)

I first fell in love with Grouper’s music when the first track on Dead Deer transitioned into the second. As the noise-drenched lullaby of “Disengaged” draws to a close, a cloud of Harris’ harmonies hangs in the air for a moment. Then, like light shining through murky water, a strumming guitar emerges from the mix. It’s the kind of guitar part someone would play around a campfire at night, sparks and embers floating up into the autumn air. From there, “Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping” unfolds, and it’s a truly beautiful piece of dream folk.

I mean “dream folk” in both the sense that this song sounds like a folk version of dream pop, but also because the song concerns itself with dreams. “In dreams, I’m moving through heavy water,” Harris sings, during one of the few outright catchy choruses in her discography. “It’s lifting me up/I’d rather be sleeping/I’d rather fall into tidal waves/Right where the deepest currents fall.” She longs to return to sleep, literally or figuratively, in order to feel the love and acceptance she desires–and yet the song’s bittersweet tone suggests that she may have to stay awake a little bit longer.

1. “Clearing” (from Ruins)

The first song on Ruins, “Made of Metal,” consists of a gently thumping hand drum, pulsing like a heartbeat to the sound of frogs croaking in the night. It’s the kind of introduction to an album that only seems redundant at first glance: it does exactly what it needs to do, which is to draw you in closer, ready to listen carefully. Once you’re there, it finishes with two loud thumps, letting silence hang in the air for a second.

Then, a single piano note, and “Clearing” begins.

“Clearing” is the best and most devastating song in Grouper’s discography, because it shows that her genius is so much more than coating vocals in reverb. Using just a couple of piano chords and a simple melody, it’s a stark gut punch of a ballad, crystallizing the feeling of depression following heartbreak and loss. Grouper’s vocal melody seems to take shelter between each chord, never straying from what the piano is doing: it’s as though it’s clinging to what feels safe, just like what many of us do after a breakup.

The lyrics are also simple, but their understatement is the key to their power. Heartbreak expressed through flowery language and extended metaphors are well and good, but Harris understands that the unvarnished truth of the situation is poignant enough. “Every time I see you, I have to pretend I don’t.” “It’s funny when we fuck up, no one really has to care.” “Sometimes I wish that none of this had happened.” It’s all true, and it all hurts.

But as sad as Grouper’s music can get, it’s about more than just wallowing. There’s no self-pity, not on “Clearing” and not anywhere else in her discography. There’s just understanding: understanding the depths of her emotions, understanding the time that it will take to heal, understanding that she may never fully get there, understanding that it’s worth trying anyway.