Your new favorite lullaby

It’s not always easy to fall asleep. This music is here to help.

“Violet Replacement” is a double-disc sleep lesson from Portland’s prolific Liz Harris, who releases solo work as Grouper. Her musical focus is about dreaming, identity, memory and space. Better known for her sleepy guitar pop-drone, she also makes dream-inducing ambient-noise. “Violent Replacement” is a dose of the latter.
 
Harris’ latest album is based on her collaborative performance piece and art installation of the same name with drone artist Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. In an interview with the Quietus, Harris described the piece as intentionally lasting “the length of an entire sleep cycle.”

For seven hours, listeners laid on pillows in a circle around the two performers, who sat motionless in the dark room while dim projections played.
Each taking up an entire disc, its two songs are “Rolling Gate” and “Sleep.”
“Rolling Gate” slowly washes over you like murky tide, its droning ambience sustained with hazy field recordings and muted guitar. Near the end of the song’s 37 minutes, the foggy guitarwork erupts into a blown out recording of roaring wind.

The 52-minute “Sleep” is Harris’ most successful exploration of the liminal plane between conscious and unconscious space. The song opens with gorgeous vocal loops, dissolves into warm tape feedback, overlays field recordings of rain and drifts away.

I know music that puts you to sleep doesn’t normally seem like a good thing, but given Harris’ intention and effect, “Violet Replacement” sounds like the best lullaby I’ve ever heard.