A sombre, funereal drum is the sole instrument on ‘Made of Metal’, a stark, dark introduction to the album before a mellifluous piano rolls in and Liz Harris’ vocal, barely audible at times as it hovers in the ambience between the notes, makes its captivating presence known. The songs are simple and sparse, and the recordings themselves have a live, unadulterated feel: there’s a soft fuzz of natural reverb to the piano, and nothing else. Harris makes no attempt to dominate, and instead she exists as an extension of the piano, the songs hazy ethereal wholes rather than discernible individual elements.
With the exception of the much older ‘Made of Air’, the album was recorded in Portugal in 2011, and emerged out of a period of reflection and a change of pace, as Harris recounts: ‘It was the first time I’d sat still for a few years; processed a lot of political anger and emotional garbage.’
The recording process was simple - a portable 4-track a stereo mic and an upright piano - and Liz recalls that ‘When I wasn’t recording songs I was hiking several miles to the beach. The path wound through the ruins of several old estates and a small village... The album is a document. A nod to that daily walk. Failed structures. I left the songs the way they came.’ A rumbling storm and other ambient sounds only add to the album’s rich atmosphere and imbue it with a sense of naturalness and an organic feeling.
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The haunting, evocative connotations of ruins – lives and experiences unknown, stories and events lost in the crumbling walls of former buildings reclaimed slowly but surely by nature – are captured perfectly here. Delicate, sparse and sketch-like, ‘Ruins’ is a magnificently haunting collection that resonates on levels far beneath the surface.
Grouper Online
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