‘It's rational to fear the music industry’: Grouper's Liz Harris on virality and her new dream-pop trio album
Experimental musician Liz Harris, known as Grouper, played sold-out shows in New York while discussing her dream-pop trio Helen's new album and her experience with music industry streaming fraud. She also described how a 2008 song unexpectedly went viral and was illegally monetized by a scammer.
Liz Harris, who has made experimental ambient music as Grouper since 2005, played two sold-out shows at Manhattan's Town Hall theatre in mid-September. The 46-year-old artist, now based in Astoria, Oregon, has influenced musicians including Phoebe Bridgers and Mk.gee, and has been sampled by Lil B and 100 Gecs.
The shows came five years after her last Grouper album, Shade, and coincided with the release of Linda's Head, the second record from her dream-pop trio Helen, alongside drummer Jed Bindeman and bassist Scott Simmons. Harris said performing in Helen lets her express a more social, playful side of her personality compared to the solitary nature of her Grouper work.
The band's name references both Washington's Mount St Helens and a childhood memory — as a teenager, Harris believed she was communicating with an imagined ghost named Helen. Songs on the new album, including two tracks titled Dead Shark, were inspired by Harris seeing a dead shark floating near the coast during a difficult emotional period.
In the interview, Harris also discussed troubling aspects of the music industry. During the pandemic, her 2008 song Poison Tree unexpectedly went viral on TikTok, eventually surpassing 300 million plays on the world's largest streaming platform. It emerged that someone else had fraudulently uploaded and registered the song, earning a significant sum from it before Harris and her label, Kranky, managed to shut down the scam and recover the owed royalties.
Harris said streaming platforms are far less regulated than people assume, which is part of why she deliberately keeps her distance from deeper involvement with the music industry. Beyond her music, she runs the label YellowElectric, a zine called Presence, and occasionally an art gallery.
