The experimental composer Liz Harris—best known as Grouper—is Western Oregon’s resident ghost, conjuring delicate whispers and heavy drones that have haunted the bioregion for two decades. Her work drifts between the otherworldly and the intimate, from acclaimed atmospheres on Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill (2008) and Shade (2021) to her electronic collage piece featured in Portland Institute of Contemporary Art’s 2023 show Remembering to Remember.

Harris’ uncanny hymns are serene to the point of unsettling the listener. But her hazy band Helen, whose lone album The Original Faces was released in 2015, is her most accessible project. Even so, it retains a broody sensibility—Helen is less haunted, but still, you know… pretty haunted.

Helen’s two other members are fixtures of Portland’s ex

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