grouper / ilyas ahmed

I have rediscovered Ilyas Ahmed of late, thanks to a Gorilla vs Bear post featuring the more well-known Grouper (Liz Harris). Brad Rose’s Foxy Digitalis drew me to Ahmed, a source I cannot fault for this sort of aural grease, and who’s given his new album Goner full marks. Similarly, my half-finished pursuit of Grouper has been picked up again. 

The team-up in this case is great, a powerful antidote to the reams of material from the same framework that slides through consciousness like water off a duck’s back: not sticking, just moving on through. “Exit Twilight” though, haunts. It exults in the intangibility of Harris’ vocals, that are like smoke in a dark room, pegged to soiled earth by acoustics and hollow tribal drums patted out in unaffected simplicity; a fence hemming in the ethereal voice.

Ilyas Ahmed feat. Grouper – Exit Twilight

In my ignorance a year ago, knowing nothing about Ahmed, I heard a desert-like exoticism in him. For a long time I imagined he was Persian, Egyptian, Moroccan - something exotic to my South-East Manchester. I heard sandstorms; great clouds of dust blown across my field of vision, obscuring the scene; a bleak golden landscape, scarved faces, piercing heat. In fact, Ahmed is American, an Oregon resident, born in Karachi, Pakistan, without much musical influence to contend with until 5th grade. In this interview with Rose though, it’s not easy to pick up much about his influences, or whether his heritage affects his sound, although he mentions he moved to America pretty young.

Ilyas Ahmed – Under The Singing Sea

Ilyas Ahmed – Moon Falling

Last year’s Grouper album, Dragging a Dead Deer Up A Hill got a lot of coverage in the relevant places, but it’s the album previous to this I’ve picked up again. Cover the Windows and the Walls is typically muzzy, made to sound as if it’s an old record being played with a bad needle. I like this effect – there’s something creepy about it. The music itself is not necessarily sinister, but the extra layer of audio, processed by the listener as environmental sound created by the device or the place it’s coming from, adds a subliminal whisper that there’s something else going on underneath it all. There’s the suggestion of darkness and echo and age – of a presence that knows about you, but this sound is all you know about it’s existence, location and intention.

Grouper – Follow In Our Dreams

As per usual, get this stuff from the folks on the right. I highly recommend heading over to Foxy Digitalis for more inspiration along these lines, where you can buy all sorts of stuff too.