Grouper - The Man Who Died In His Boat LP

Label: Kranky

Our Review:

The tracks on The Man Who Died In His Boat were recorded during the same sessions as Dragging A Dead Deer, which has long been viewed as the watershed album for Grouper's transformation into an icon of DIY drone-rock etherealism. Not surprisingly, The Man Who Died In His Boat feels like a long lost twin. While she still employs the waves of foggy reverb and layered far away voices, there is a reappearance of fully formed songs and a sheen of less-filtered clarity. Both records are informed by key childhood memories, this one by a discovery with her father of beached sailboat and their speculation about the man who disappeared sailing it. The ocean roar, the swelling waves of reverberant sound and the far away sadness of acoustic sea shanties pour throughout the release creating a moving hypnotic spell which invariably holds us helpless in its grasp. Beautiful!