A resident of the Pacific Northwest, Harris was born in Northern California and grew up in a Fourth Way commune in the Bay Area. In 2015, Liz Harris worked with filmmaker Paul Clipson on Hypnosis Display, a film about American myth-making commissioned by Leeds Opera North. She returned as Grouper with Shade. Recorded over the course of 15 years in locations including Portland and Oregon, California’s Mount Tamalpais, the album’s songs were united by their themes of respite and the coast.

As Grouper, Liz Harris combines aspects of ambient, psychedelic, and folk music as well as dream pop into music that is equally mysterious and moving. The singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist uncovers different nuances within her style on each of her many releases, which range from the lush and relatively poppy territory of 2008’s widely acclaimed Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill to 2012’s sprawling double-album A I A to more intimate works like 2018’s Grid of Points. By borrowing from all of these approaches on 2021’s Shade, Harris highlighted the emotional intimacy underpinning Grouper’s music from the beginning.