The ambient US musician’s 10th studio album is “the most heartbreaking and beautiful record of the year by a country mile…”. The album was recorded very simply with a portable stereo microphone next to an upright piano, and even includes a beep from a microwave picked up accidentally. Liz Harris, from Portland Oregon, however, is unlikely to share any of these piscatorial characteristics but the music on her new album ‘Ruins’ does indeed
have more than a little flavour of cimmerian subaquatic mystery about it.
This collection could not, in any terms, be considered “easy listening”. Ms Harris has a disctinctive vision which bares some resemblance to the spectral landscapes conjured by Austrian singer/songwriter Anja Plaschg (aka Soap & Skin) and listening to these eight compositions is among the most unsettling musical experiences I have had this year.
Following an enigmactic introduction, which consists of little more than
a faint heartbeat and what seems, to my hairy ears, to be a few croaks
from a wayward crow, the first song in the set, ‘Clearing’, an arrangement
for voice and piano, unfolds so quietly that it is almost impossible to
discern the half-whispered words but the fragile melody is quite beautiful
in its own way and the sum effect of the piece is strangely captivating.
The Fat Angel Sings 