Suddenly, in a dream, Liz Harris found the name Nivhek. The pieces came later, and they fitted perfectly.

ENGINE (WITH A FILM BY TAKASHI MAKINO)

Interviewed for editorial independent music website The Quietus, Harris said “I don't have to think about a lot of the stuff I do creatively, I just kind of get told to do it”.

After Shade, released in 2021 as Grouper, Harris reactivates her moniker Nivhek to bring us Engine, a new live show that began as a one night only event at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in March 2023.

Engine materializes Harris’s self-confessed obsession with engine sounds from cars and trains, and noise explosions heard at drag races. For Harris, that is the sound of excess, power, sex, destruction, capitalism, and oil becoming an airborne pollutant.

All the same those are the sounds of transformation, from which comes life. With an original film by Takashi Makino shown in the background, Engine is a large stage machine of guttural bass tones and constant revving up that mimics our heartbeat and breathing, and pumps the blood in our veins.