Nivhek

For most of the century, Liz Harris has best been known by the name Grouper, an immersive solo project in which she creates orbs of barely flickering sound that lure listeners ever-inward, like moths circling fading porch lights. Through its various sonic permutations, from guitar and voice to piano to sheets of subdued miasmic noise, Grouper has been a liminal project, tottering on the thresholds of ambient music and psychedelia, sound art and songwriting, conjuring and channeling. Like a Rothko painting or an Octavio Paz poem, Grouper’s best work invites you to stare into something that foregoes an easy reading, to find your own emotional path through the frame she has rendered.

That ideal dominates for Harris’ latest moniker, Nivhek. After hearing the name in a dream about a ritual happening above the Arctic Circle, Harris accepted an invitation for an artistic residency in Murmansk, the largest city north of the Circle, high in Russia along the Arctic Ocean. In that bleak setting, Harris coupled her emerging understanding of Ableton software with long-forgotten vocal takes and this sense of far-north calm amid decay. On the project’s debut dual LP, After its own death/Walking in a Spiral Towards the House, she shows her range as a stylistic conjurer, moving from the sound of submerged choirs to industrial throb to slowly twinkling gamelan across 20-minute spans. It is fascinatingly nonlinear music, with little incidents of mesmerizing or terrifying sound inviting you to step back and piece together some bigger picture, like trying to rebuild a cloud after the rain has fallen from it.

After initially considering Nivhek an isolated recording project, Harris was scheduled to bring the idea to Big Ears 2020 for a rare performance, but then coronavirus.

For fans of Roger & Brian Eno, Noveller, Julianna Barwick, and Harold Budd.