Liz Harris has scored two films about water, one of them about the Rhône

Liz Harris, who records as Grouper, has scored two short films about water, and the music is coming out as a record. Music For Two Films About Water collects her pieces for the artists Tanja Engelberts and Takashi Makino, one untitled track for each film.

Engelberts' We Exhale (2023) follows the Rhône and what damming, channelling and industrial pollution have done to it, turning the river into a managed structure and changing its chemistry. Engelberts works with landscapes that can no longer be seen, gathering and rearranging what remains on the surface.

Makino's Constellation (2024) is made of images that appear and disappear inside shifting textures of water. It takes its idea from the way ancient people joined scattered stars into stories, and leaves viewers to make their own meanings from the pictures. Harris's score for it, which runs to more than 20 minutes, has been released ahead of the album.

The release describes each piece as "an expression of water", and the two go about it differently, blending "literal, improvisatory and impressionistic" readings of the theme. We Exhale takes the point of view of the river itself, and the music Harris originally composed for it is framed around a single question: what a poisoned river sounds like when it exhales.

Both pieces are built from layers of mellotron, tape loops, Wurlitzer and field recordings. Film has been part of Harris's work for a long time: she spent nearly a decade working with Paul Clipson, and has played live with Makino and with Dicky Bahto.

Music For Two Films About Water is out on Kranky on CD and LP on 27 November.