Grid of Points

In contrast to 2014’s colossal Ruins, Grid of Points feels relatively slight, though it remains incredibly spacious.

Grid’s abbreviated runtime (seven tracks in just over 20 minutes) doesn’t give you much time to linger in it, and some melodies simply prove too gossamer to grab on to. Harris’ lyrics, as ever, are more sensed than received. Yet it’s another uniquely immersive, meditative experience, however briefly it lasts.

Harris takes a minimalist approach on Grid of Points, but she imbues it with so much feeling that it could never be called slight.

Though the length of each successive Grouper album wastes away, at only 22 minutes Grid of Points provides such compelling sketches that the lost minutes only manifest after the music has stopped. Harris’ sound has always been haunting, but by investigating absence on Grid of Points she haunts herself, capturing a restlessness that has returned to make sense of its ending.

Harris revisits the design of Ruins and guides it into a new form, one that's less immediately fulfilling, yet more stimulating, in a strange way. It's an album that's truly broken and poignant, and, most importantly, one that teaches us to see the beauty in our limited view.

Every track on Grid Of Points is captivating.

Albums like this are refreshing for that exact reason; you actually have to have enough patience to allow the beauty and grace of her work to reveal itself, but in the end your patience is more than rewarded.

This music suits periods of poignant, existential anguish.

It’s pithy and monochromatic, forcing the listener to pay the closest attention to every movement. Every harmony is a different shade of grey, and this record does yield some of her loveliest harmonies.

Harris says these songs were recorded over a brief but intense period brought to an unexpected stop thanks to a high fever. The album itself is much like that – fleeting, over before you can catch your breath. But, an imprint of something – a distinct mark you’re not quite sure the meaning of--is left behind.

Grid of Points is as untidy as 2005’s Way Their Crept or 2008’s Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill. What’s different--and what’s key--is that in her ongoing embrace of the piano, Harris has made room in her artistry for a new sensation: the unmistakable glow of comfort.

Harris is a sage escort to have along for the ride, and with the spare concrete signifiers and evocative open spaces she provides on Grid of Points, she's crafted a map for the full spectrum of human emotions and experiences.

Grid of Points is a seemingly-unfinished bunch of loose ends that somehow appear complete when combined.

It was written and recorded in only a week and a half, and this is the beauty of it. Harris has managed to capture an emotion and deliver it in its rawest and purest form.

Grid of Points burrows back into ambiguity, the vocal harmonies overlapping in foggy indeterminacy even when they are unaccompanied by any other instrument. And yet they are more heavenly than ever, Harris’ melodies drifting in almost liturgical directions.

While Harris’s voice has become more manoeuvrable, the combination of echo, layering and breathy delivery push the literal meaning of her lyrics just out of reach. Instead the words are like a lure, drawing you further into the space between unfurling sequences of hesitant notes and quiet cries. [May 2018, p.49]

It sometimes renders a bit slight and doesn't have quite the volume of her best material. But Grid of Points pulls you in all the same, and as it is with Harris's best work, she emanates a mysterious allure.

The relative brevity and sparseness of the album, allied to the fact that it largely extends ideas laid down earlier in Harris’s career, won’t see Grid Of Points talked of in the same elevated way as some of her other work. But it serves as a timely reminder of her ability to create beautifully slow and contemplative music.

Liz Harris's 10th album continues her slow ascent out of the appealingly murky haze of her early releases towards structured, if still frail, songwriting. [Jun 2018, p.28]