Mount Eerie

Last Friday, Phil Elverum released a new album under his Mount Eerie moniker with the absolutely epic and sprawling "Night Palace."  I haven't had a chance to sit with the album in its entirety yet (it weighs in at 26 tracks and 81 minutes), but it feels like it may be something of an all-timer.  Check out the wonderful fuzzy and melancholy "I Walk" below and get the LP here from P.W. Elverum & Sun.

Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron

Mount Eerie is back with a new record in November, this time around with singer/songwriter Julie Doiron in tow.  Listen to the hushed and wistful "Love without Possession" below and pre-order the upcoming "Lost Wisdom pt. 2" LP here from P.W. Elverum and Sun.

Mount Eerie

Phil Elverum continues to explore and work out his grief over his wife's passing on new album "Now Only," the follow up to last year's stark and devastating "A Crow Looked At Me."  Listen to "Distortion" below and look for the new record in March on Elverum and Sun.

Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me

How are you feeling today?  Good?  Good.  Wanna listen to something great that's going to absolutely crush your heart and soul?  The latest from Phil Elverum as Mount Eerie, the devastating "A Crow Looked at Me," examines the artist's life and heartbreak in the months following his wife's early death from cancer, leaving him a single father.  Here's a summation of the project in the artist's own words:

WRITTEN AND RECORDED August 31st to Dec. 6th, 2016 in the same room where Geneviève died, using mostly her instruments, her guitar, her bass, her pick, her amp, her old family accordion, writing the words on her paper, looking out the same window.

Why share this much? Why open up like this? Why tell you, stranger, about these personal moments, the devastation and the hanging love? Our little family bubble was so sacred for so long. We carefully held it behind a curtain of privacy when we’d go out and do our art and music selves, too special to share, especially in our hyper-shared imbalanced times. Then we had a baby and this barrier felt even more important. (I still don’t want to tell you our daughter’s name.) Then in May 2015 they told us Geneviève had a surprise bad cancer, advanced pancreatic, and the ground opened up. What matters now? we thought. Then on July 9th 2016 she died at home and I belonged to nobody anymore. My internal moments felt like public property. The idea that I could have a self or personal preferences or songs eroded down into an absurd old idea leftover from a more self-indulgent time before I was a hospital-driver, a caregiver, a child-raiser, a griever.

I am open now, and these songs poured out quickly in the fall, watching the days grey over and watching the neighbors across the alley tear down and rebuild their house. I make these songs and put them out into the world just to multiply my voice saying that I love her. I want it known. "Death Is Real" could be the name of this album. These cold mechanics of sickness and loss are real and inescapable, and can bring an alienating, detached sharpness. But it is not the thing I want to remember. A crow did look at me. There is an echo of Geneviève that still rings, a reminder of the love and infinity beneath all of this obliteration. That’s why.

- Phil Elverum Dec. 11th, 2016 Anacortes

This is a difficult record to listen to, but it's a real and stark examination of grief, and it deserves your utmost attention.  Listen to album opener "Real Death" below, and buy the record from P.W. Elverum & Sun.

Mount Eerie

Ever the devotee to Phil Elverum's Mount Eerie project, whether it be in the guise of soft, wistful, acoustic folk, noisy, lo-fi, bedroom rock, or experimental drone, i'm pretty stoked for new album "Sauna," due in February on P.W. Elverum and Sun.  Watch the video for the title track below.  It's odd.