Lav's Music Corner

Grouper is the musical project of singer and songwriter Liz Harris who has received loads of critical acclaim across her long career in a myriad of genres. From indie folk to ambient to a nearly undefinable blend of psychedelic folk micro genres. Shade  follows Liz's previous album Grid Of Points  in 2018 which was a short but conceptual experiment with minimalism. Shade  takes that indulgence to a whole new level with some of the most sonically reserved folk tunes of 2021. Review By Lav: Everyone has their favorite Grouper project and for most people it's 2008's  Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill . While I love that record I also have to say that in 2011 she followed it up with A I A Alien Observer , an ambient record unlike anything else I've ever heard in the genre. So when I heard some of the early press I got pretty excited about the promise she made to continue fusing extreme minimalism and ambient music traits into her songs and she absolutely did not disapp...

Xiu Xiu is the long running experimental music project of singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart. The band has been through many iterations and line-up changes over the past 20 years and their most recent era was defined by horror themed experimentations starting with a covers album of the Twin Peaks  soundtrack and culminating in the brash an terrifying Girl With Basket Of Fruit  in 2019. OH NO  appears to be a transition in the bands style as they recruit guests vocalists on every single track here to craft a series of uniquely strange duets. Review By Lav: The last two Xiu Xiu albums have been particular favorites of mine so I think the band can be described as being in some sort of 2nd stage renaissance. With that being said I wasn't really sure what to expect going into this album. I wasn't sure how much influence the featured artists would have on the tracks but ultimately the album feels very pretty recognizably Xiu Xiu throughout.  Generally speaking most of the mor...