June 8, 2010 – Casa del Popolo – 9PM – GROUPER + GRIMES + THISQUIETARMY

GROUPER

Grouper is the assumed name of Northern Californian artist Liz Harris, and over the last few years she has quickly nudged herself into the underground spotlight with her peculiarly disarming music.

Her journey began with the haunting midnight ambience of ‘Way Their Crept’ released on ex-Deerhoof member Rob Fisk’s Free Porcupine Society label in 2005. The record was instantly praised by British site Volcanic Tongue who described it as a ‘wildcard late entry for album of the year’, and its woozy blend of William Basinski-esque drone and breathy vocals slowly garnered the attention of music fans around the world. What followed over the next few years was a handful of stunning releases, from ‘Wide’ (again on FPS) to the haunting collaborative recording with Xiu Xiu entitled ‘Creepshow’. With each release Liz grew in confidence and refined her unique style, coming to a head with the limited ‘Cover the Windows and the Walls’ LP on Root Strata which sold out in a matter of weeks.

In 2008 she released the album which defined her sound; ‘Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill’ and through cult British imprint Type Records she finally reached the wider audience she deserved. The album achieved an unprecedented amount of critical acclaim, with respected US webzine Pitchfork mentioning it in their top albums of 2008, touting it as ‘druggy and sexy and arty and pretty, but never pretentious’.  In 2009 she toured the USA in support of Animal Collective (one of the world’s biggest alternative acts), released split 7”s with City Center and Pumice and continues to stun audiences worldwide with her truly unique songs.

http://www.myspace.com/grouperrepuorg
http://www.groundcontroltouring.com/artists/grouper/

GRIMES

Grimes is Claire Boucher. Lack of musical training yields unpretentious but compelling composition in which electronic and organic sounds come together in a colourful goth-pop-noise medley. Drawing from classical medieval chorale and synth-pop, among other things, Grimes fuses contemporary instrumentation with classical vocal practices from around the world.

THIS QUIET ARMY

Eric Quach is a guitarist and sound engineer who performs under the name Thisquietarmy. He is also the guitarist and founding member of the Montreal-based instrumental rock band Destroyalldreamers. With two internationally acclaimed albums, “À Cœur Léger Sommeil Sanglant » in 2004 and « Wish I Was All Flames » in 2007 on Where Are My Records, a Montreal record label, as well as a 12” vinyl EP « Glare/Halo » in 2006 on Claire’s Echo, an American record label, Destroyalldreamers has gained a notorious cult band status amongst their peers.
As Thisquietarmy, a one-man solo drone/ambient project, Quach composes visual guitar-based soundscapes and experimental music that goes beyond the typical song structure. By exploring his guitar as a tone generator, he furthers the boundaries of his instrument with the use of multiple effect processors & real-time loop-samplers, alternating the guitar signal’s shape and tone, blending textures over textures, merging a wide combination of sounds together and developing the melodies hidden in these walls of sound. Concrete musical ideas are often generated by the re-interpretation, the decomposition and the reconstruction of its own improvisations. Thisquietarmy performs live regularly throughout Canada and the USA, and has played with Ulrich Schnauss, Olafur Arnalds, Tim Hecker, Troum, Nadja & Caspian just to name a few.
Thisquietarmy has released two albums « Unconquered » and « Blackhaunter » in 2008, respectively on Poland’s Foreshadow Productions and USA’s Elevation Recordings. He has also released several EPs including: « Wintersleeper » (2005) and « Orange » (2006), both on his own imprint This Quiet Army Records, « Echotone » (2007) on Canada’s Chat Blanc Records. A collaborative album with Aidan Baker (Nadja) will be released in 2009 on USA’s Killer Pimp Records and Thisquietarmy is currently working on a few short-film scores and soundtracks. With already such a large body of work in which is revealed a large range of guitar-based sonic styles, from minimal drone to electro-ambient to psychedelic shoegaze/post-rock, Thisquietarmy is a forward contender as a pioneer of the experimental ambient Canadian music scene.
Live performance
Thisquietarmy has been performing live since 2006, especially in Montreal and Quebec City, but also in Ontario and in the USA. The live performances are always presented as a multimedia installation, based on an impromptu score to a prepared film. The usual themes revolve around dark ethereal ambiences and ghostly abstract, prepared by Thisquietarmy himself.
Except for the occasional propulsive beat, no other sound is pre-recorded on stage as everything is done live on the fly. Armed with no less than three loop-samplers, a dozen of pedals, dual-mono signals, as well as dark & ghostly visual projections, Thisquietarmy’s live material can be as structured as it can be improvised on the spot, depending on the moment’s vibe, and drowns the audience in a dream-like hypnotic state of introspection that can sometimes turn into a nightmare. Since 2006, parallel works in sonic exploration and visual montage have been in constant evolution with each performance.

http://www.thisquietarmy.com
http://www.myspace.com/thisquietarmy