“I go on describing this place / And the way it feels to live and die.” — Mount Eerie, “Through The Trees, Pt. 2”I once heard a professor say that Robert Schumann’s music only makes sense if you’re in a certain part of Germany. I tend to disagree with those kinds of claims, but I’d also be lying if I said that Phil Elverum’s music doesn’t strongly evoke the magic, mystery, and feeling of the Pacific Northwest. And it’s not just me, it’s a common point made about his songs: it’s in the imagery of the music, between the trees and the ocean roars, through the black metal interludes, behind the Twin Peaks synths and references; his music is about space and feeling, and the spaces are particular.His early work as The Microphones was bombastic, experimental, and seriously affecting, capturing through music and lyrics exactly how it feels to be a young person and to embody a wild existence. If you’re like me and this music has been with you for a while, you probably straighten up in your seat and unfocus your eyes a bit when I mention The Glow, Pt. 2. It’s real.As Elverum transitioned from The Microphones to Mount Eerie, his songs became a little clearer, a little more adult, and a little more enveloping. His 2012 releases form a perfect snapshot of his tremendous ability to evoke all things at once: The intimate, almost trembling Clear Moon fuses airy guitars and shuffling percussion to create distinctly breezy-yet-serious tableaus, while Ocean Roar is an explosive, electronic-infused synthesis of post-rock and black metal. Taken together, these albums represent the complex essence of Mount Eerie.The initiated and uninitiated alike can prepare themselves for Elverum’s newest work, the haunting and raw A Crow Looked At Me, which deals with the tragic loss of his wife, musician/artist Geneviève Castrée, from pancreatic cancer in July 2016. In this intensely personal album, he pursues brave, new paths of truth and sound, while still sounding like classic Elverum. Get brought up to speed with this playlist of his work as Mount Eerie and The Microphones.
