Grouper Digs Up Unreleased Songs for New Album, Reissues 'Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill'

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Dec 12, 2012

Grouper (aka Liz Harris) started up a relationship with Kranky Records earlier this year when the label repressed her 2011 A I A: Alien Observer and A I A : Dream Loss efforts onto one CD, and the imprint will dig back even deeper into the Portland ambient folkster's catalogue for another pair of releases.

On February 4, Kranky will repress Harris' stunning 2008 set Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, which has gone in and out of print since originally appearing on Type. But longtime fans may be even more interested to learn of an album of unreleased material called The Man Who Died in His Boat, which arrives the same day.

According to a press release, the 11-song set was recorded around the same period and was partly inspired by a childhood event of Harris'.

"When I was a teenager the wreckage of a sailboat washed up on the shore of Agate Beach," she said in a statement. "The remains of the vessel weren't removed for several days. I walked down with my father to peer inside the boat cabin. Maps, coffee cups and clothing were strewn around inside.

"I remember looking only briefly, wilted by the feeling that I was violating some remnant of this man's presence by witnessing the evidence of its failure. Later I read a story about him in the paper. It was impossible to know what had happened. The boat had never crashed or capsized. He had simply slipped off somehow, and the boat, like a riderless horse, eventually came back home."

You can see the tracklist of The Man Who Died in His Boat below and its cover art above.

The Man Who Died in His Boat:

1. 6
2. Vital
3. Cloud in places
4. Being her shadow
5. Cover the long way
6. Difference (voices)
7. Vanishing point
8. The Man Who Died in His Boat
9. Towers
10. STS
11. Living Room

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