Grouper debuts new track, 'Call Across Rooms' • News • DIY Magazine

Considering her affinity for cheery album titles like ‘Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill’, it’s not really a surprise that the latest preview ahead of Grouper’s forthcoming eighth studio album, ‘Ruins’, is an emotionally-charged, devastating beauty of a track. Recorded back in 2011 while Grouper was in Portugal, ‘Call Across Rooms’ falls into the plaintive and lamenting category of Grouper’s wide arsenal, and oozes with a strange, slow-burning sense of longing.

“The song is on one level very plain and literal, about a letter I wrote for someone I loved and could not get along with,” explained Liz Harris, talking to Vogue about the song. “On a more subconscious, poetic level, it is a letter to myself, as aspiration to love better.”

It does move away from the ambient, static-covered haze of Harris’ last record, ‘The Man Who Died In His Own Boat’, into a more minimal place. Echoing piano keys steal the show, meandering like raindrops dithering down a windowpane. Emotionally, it’s bit like a Sim stuck in a swimming pool with a missing ladder, because there’s no way to escape the murky deeps.

Grouper’s ‘Ruins’ is due for release on the 31st October, and this latest cut, ‘Call Across Rooms’, hints that it’ll be completely, crushingly, beautiful.