#mirrorring

    ~ [ Album Review |  1) Headphone Commute  +  2) Pitchfork +  3) Drowned in Sound  +  4) Pop Matters ]

1)  Besides all of the effort that I am trying to put into writing this review with the appropriate adjectives, only three words come to mind: serenity, simplicity, and beauty. Even the press release which accompanies this collaborative release by Jesy Fortino and Liz Harris tends to avoid many words: “One could try to assess what part of the album each artist was responsible for, but that would prevent one from seeing the proverbial forest for the trees.” Perhaps this loss of language is induced by the celestial atmosphere painted with songs in enigmatic dialect, on this gorgeous release by Kranky. The six contemplative tracks on Foreign Body by a newly devised project called Mirroring reflect on an inner state of mind, untouchable by concepts and words.

The seemingly ethereal guitar chords are embraced with soft fuzzy vocals, drifting just above the surface, with enough space to grasp another breath of air, before submerging in subconsciousness of sound and mind. The album retains its detachment from the burden of reality by drenching the sound in clouds and haze. Some of the Pacific Northwestern rainy atmosphere seeps into the tracks, recorded at a songwriting session in Portland. Although not explicitly stated, I can hear the analog recording equipment through the lo-fi approach embraced throughout the album. The production harbors traces of drone and noise, but in the foreground the music remains unclassifiably gentle and warm. The lyrics slip between the reverbed instruments, lingering at edges of comprehension, before dissolving into barely decipherable ghostly echoes. Precisely how I like my lyrics to feel…

Track titles like “Silent From Above”, “Cliffs”, and “Drowning the Call” hint further at vast distances of spacious soundscapes covered by music of these two talented musicians. Jesy Fortino has recorded under her Tiny Vipers alias, with two full length releases on Sub Pop: Hands Across The Void (2007) and Life On Earth (2009). This is her first official collaboration, not counting her vocal appearances on Balmorhea‘s All Is Wild, All Is Silent (Western Vinyl, 2009), and vocal samples on Orcas‘ 2012 self-titled release on Morr. And for Foreign Body Fortino could not have chosen a better partner. Liz Harris, is none other than Grouper, who has been recording since 2005 (but only caught my attention with her 2008 release on Type, Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill). In 2011, Harris released an AIA series published by Yellow Electric and Kranky, followed by her very latest, Violet Replacement (Yellow Electric, 2012). So if any of the above references have excited you, you absolutely must get Foreign Bodies.

…and by the time I realized that Foreign Body is quickly becoming one of my favorite albums of the year, the track “Silent From Above” is permanently stuck in my head on an endless loop…

2)  At what point do we distinguish sound art from song? Liz Harris and Jesy Fortino are musicians based in the Pacific Northwest who have each spent several records exploring this question. Harris, who records as Grouper, crafts ambient works that range from muted, narcotic guitar pop to more characteristic drone pieces, all haunted by vocals that can be alien or angelic. Fortino, meanwhile, leans toward black-hearted folk in her work as Tiny Vipers. Using primitively spare guitar lines, she etches full-bodied and evocative works characterized by silence and space, with expressive lyrics that convey feelings of isolation through form more than storytelling. In at least one interview, Fortino referenced the mystic, orchestral minimalism of Arvo Pärt's sacred music, and recently in conversation with Pitchfork, she noted her and Harris' shared roots in metal. Fortino almost certainly alluded to the similarly brutal Swans on her 2009 track "Young God". These are imaginative parameters, and both artists have been individually responsible for albums that provide consistently therapeutic listening.

Foreign Body is the pair's collaborative record as Mirrorring, and it effectively and purposefully combines their respective sounds. Tension is the driving force for these six compositions, as each builds from electro-acoustic whispers to landscapes that range from paralyzing paranoia to a glistening sense of subliminal bliss. The recordings feel realized and complete, but never too dense, and while listening I feel placed distinctly between either musician, their sounds tearing from various angles.

Some of these works would make sense on a Grouper or Tiny Vipers record, marked foremost by the aesthetic of the track's leader, but the foil Fortino and Harris offer one another is crucial. The trudging opener "Fell Sound" is reminiscent of Grouper's album Way Their Crept with an eerie and overwhelming sense of drowning in lightness. But Fortino's subtle, suspended guitar work begins to pull from an elevated place, and you never fall too far. The sheer immensity of Grouper's drones on "Fell Sound" makes Fortino's following "Silent From Above" all the more stark, crushing, and cathartic. It's the record's most tuneful and formally structured song, and an immediate highlight, led by acoustic fingerpicks that sound nearly identical to "Development" from her 2009 album Life on Earth. And "Drowning the Call" is a nuanced and idyllic drone-scape centered on the sunlit side of Grouper's aesthetic, but radiating with a new, mood-altering clarity that brings to mind a kind of healing, utopian dream state.

The most affecting tracks on Foreign Body achieve something transcendent, making use of the full range of the duo's instrumental toolbox as well as Fortino's deep warble. At the center is "Cliffs", a nearly 10-minute track that begins with slow and artfully minimal guitar notes, reminiscent of a downcast and zoned-out remake of Nick Drake's "Horn". Acoustic notes crawl and unfurl in a hypnotic, circular fashion, using broad strokes to foreshadow an undercurrent of anxiousness. Listening, for me, evokes the feeling of climbing a cliff and facing the absolute terror of an ocean, past its mist and dew. The piece eventually towers over into a collage of dissolving weather sounds, with Fortino's earthy guitar tones and Harris' oceanic electronics expanding a pronounced, pastoral picture. It's an experiment in the emotional possibilities of space, and seemingly designed to make you feel very small.

"Mine" grows to a similar climax, but instead ends with the noisiest and most expansive drone sounds on the record, with skull-mining capabilities that leave a rattling sense of dread. Whether intentional or not, the song's title reminds me that Foreign Body, and indeed the whole of both artists' catalogs, makes the most sense when heard in solitude. I have gravitated toward albums by Harris and Fortino during the most difficult points of my life, and, despite its high-floating potential to incite escapism, I imagine Foreign Body will likewise help bring many a lost listener down to earth.

"Meditative" is one of a handful of the most common terms pinned to Grouper and Tiny Vipers, but with these tracks it's worth pausing to consider why it is so important to engage with things like repetition and drone. The sound of "Drowning the Call", and much of Foreign Body, offers a sense of hyper-presence; of being acutely aware of yourself as the music's recipient, which counters our disengaged, techno-distracted worlds of Elsewhere and offers a moment of mindfulness.

There is a tendency among music critics to create sub-stories with records and impose narratives. We might identify with a hardcore punk group this year because we are a restless generation, or with a work of hyperactive pop because the internet has made us incapable of concentrating, and so on. But sometimes we take a record for what it is: a resistant piece of art, existing as a singular entity. In a world that is newly full of "content" at every turn, it can be refreshing to find an uncompromising record that exists so honestly on its own.

3)  With the recent solar disturbances and the renewed chance of aurorae in the hinterlands of northern most Britain, attention has been turned firmly skywards again. It seems almost prescient, as Liz 'Grouper' Harris has returned to the fold after last year’s A I A, a double album composed of forays into the cosmos and the subconscious. Harris’ new project, or rather joint project, is a collaboration with Jesy Fortino, otherwise known as Tiny Vipers. Fortino’s last release, 2009’s Life on Earth, explored celestial territories not dissimilar to Grouper. Foreign Body finally aligns both Harris and Fortino, who have long been positioned closely within the constellation of West coast musicians.

Mirrorring, the name chosen for this project is, as you may have noticed, is purposely misspelt for symmetry. For Liz Harris and Jesy Fortino this project is a conceptual game of mirrors. In a recent interview with DiS, Harris describes their collaboration “as reflections and comments on each other as much as they remained statements of our individual emotions.” Those reflections on one another come as ripples and disturbances below the surface of each other’s individual contributions. Harris works at the depths, her low-end soundscapes gently affecting currents at the surface. Fortino’s strums rise from this sonic mire, faintly perceptible between the reverb.

Neither ever overcomes the other, but the equilibrium shifts from song to song. On the aptly named ‘Silent The Above’, reminiscent most of Tiny Vipers, Fortino’s vocals are relatively undisturbed, while reverberating echoes seep in around her eventually drowning her out. For anyone familiar with Fortino’s previous work, the alterations to her sparse aesthetic are at once obvious. Her own additions of laconic acoustic guitar are in keeping with her minimalism; an oddly corporeal accompaniment to the unworldly drones and indistinct chimes and strings underneath it.

Vocals are shared much like the instrumentation; voices hover at the edge of intelligibility, snippets perceivable at a strain. Harris filters in and out melding words and waiflike harmonies. Fortino’s fragile warbles are rarely distinguishable, lacking the sharpness of her previous recordings. Lyrics remain impenetrably private as if glimmered through eavesdropping. ‘Mine’ is almost liturgical, as Fortino drops her voice to a low incantation merging with Harris’s shadowy backing. Those brief moments, when the two echo or respond to each together, are where the project is most successful. On ‘Cliffs’ plucks of guitar are refracted through Harris’s production morphing into shrill fragments, fragile arpeggios are transformed into dissonant vibrations and mournful tones. For a moment the equilibrium is poised at this eclipse, resting between unease and dread.

Aside from that moment, there is little that offers any new elucidation of either artist. Grouper and Tiny Vipers are mostly discernable throughout, only occasionally is something foreign borne from their collaboration. Mirrorring have created an album that never coalesces, in which it’s difficult not to remain conscious of its parts, wonderful as they may be. Foreign Body leaves you standing between two mirrors, staring at endless reflections that never foreseeably meet.

4)  If there was an award for saddest-slowest-quietest abstract songwriter of the last five years, Jesy Fortino (better known as Tiny Vipers) and Liz Harris (better known as Grouper) would have to duke it out. But there is no such prize. Instead, Fortino and Harris have formed some sort of sad-slow-quiet abstract Dream Team, named it Mirrorring, and put out a record.

Foreign Body inches carefully forward like a slow exhale, but it's not relaxed, it's restrained. The record is tense and haunted, full of whispered melodies and dark washes of electronic noise. Harris's dark electronic ambience and Fortino's acoustic vulnerability blend so seamlessly that it's impossible to tell where Group ends and Tiny Vipers begins. The muted dissonance and introspective melodies recall Cat Power at her best.

"Fell Sound" opens the album with a uncanny electronic hum. Like the rise and fall of a wave, it drifts between two chords. It's in moments like this that it's easy to see why Fortino and Harris have garnered so much respect and acclaim -- few musicians have the ability to make just two slow chords this captivating for this long, and few have the patience to try. I also don't usually have the patience to listen when they do try, but there's something mysterious and compelling about Mirrorring that draws me in. A vocal melody, then an acoustic guitar, venture gingerly through the ambient tide, never rising about a murmur.

"Silent from Above" flips "Fell Sound" inside out, with voice and acoustic guitar leading the way, homey and wistful. The faint wash of a suspended cymbal and careful production lend texture. The song turns on a simple vocal melody, as Fortino and Harris echo and answer each other in chorus. It's the ghost of a folk song, or the folk song of a ghost.

The album's most impressive track is its ten-minute centerpiece "Cliffs". Acoustic guitar and electronic ambience cast chilling spires of sound. Every voice is so subtle, so austere, that it's difficult to comprehend the song's swelling intensity until an unsettling ringing overpowers the guitar and singing. Soon, however, the simple acoustic arpeggio that introduced the song returns alongside the haunting melody, bolder this time against the murky flood of noise. And then, the song breaks apart into deep drones and clattering echoes. The final two minutes buzz and whirr like the remenants of broken machines, and I don't know why, but my blood runs cold.

Out of this eerie quiet, the first note of "Drowning the Call" is startling, but the song is actually the album's calmest, drifting hazily through its seven minutes. There is something desolate about the song's calm though, the way it refuses to grow or move, a bleak fog that only makes sense after the destructive colossus of "Cliffs". "Mine" is the most vocal-anchored track, though the voices are still low in the swirling sound. The instruments creak like the wood of an old house while an distant pulse, a sort of chirping deep below the surface, swells in urgent horror.

"Mirror of Our Sleeping", the album's closing track, gives meaning to the collaboration's name, as unadorned vocals and a simple instrumental echo in the calm. This is the album's only track empty of hovering ambience; although the sounds are still laden with effects, you can make out every note played or sung. The reverb, the repetition, the warped pitches, all evoke moonlit reflections and refractions on the surface of some dark lake.