The Microphones : Any Good?

Long answer: yyyyeeeessss.

Actual answer: I haven't heard the new record yet -- not sure what's wrong with me there -- but I've been completely taken with these guys ever since I came across Don't Wake Me Up in a pile of things to review. (One of the few AMG reviews I'll still stand by.) It Was Hot... was a great leap forward (and one of the few Pitchfork butt-kissing raves that's actually worth it), and seeing Phil and Mirah play at a house party cemented my belief that the guy is an absolutely amazing songwriter, quite apart from his ability to mess with a studio. (I think an album of solo acoustic tracks from him might actually blow away his whole back catalog so far -- and sell incredibly, if people's love of Conor Oberst is any indication.)

Regardless: yes, yes, yes. My only complaint is that I'm waiting for his "organized" period, because as appealing as the somewhat messy natures of the recordings so far are, I do think he'd be even better with a clearer and more defined script. He could make the first half of Deserter's Songs sound like child's play.

Dont bother with Don't Wake Me or The Window, its pretty heavy on the Eric's Trip influence (Stove, Behind The Garage, Catapillars). What blew me away was It Was Hot... where he takes the basic sound from those ET songs and does something with them. Still havent listen to the new album enough yet to have an opinion.

Phil (The Microphone) went on a tour in early winter across Canada with his friend/labelmate Mirah who does a great job backing him up live. I felt sorry for Phil because the closer he got to Moncton the more drunken abuse he had to take but he was still really decent about it.

my first love is headphone music, and the 3 proper microphones albums were perfectly designed for headphones. listening to a single microphones song doesn't do them justice, as each album seems to be composed as a larger whole, with songs flowing one into the next. simple folk songs w/ acoustic guitar explode into spastic drum solos and fade out into messy guitar feedback and then back again in constant ebb and flow.

those who write the microphones off as eric's trip imitators are wrong (as much as i love e.t.) and i think have used the obvious influence to write the microphones off as instead of giving them the time they deserve. sure they swipe a verse from an erics trip song, but by recontextualizing it, it becomes something completely new. and i think the microphones do require time. when i first heard 'don't wake me up' i thought it was an interesting lo-fi record and little more, next thing i knew, i was listening to it every day.

sorry to gush, but i really think this band is that good. the 'glow pt.2' is easily my favorite album this year and i doubt anything will come out in the next few months that i like more.

search: don't wake me up, it was hot..., the glow pt. 2 and the "i can't believe you actually died" and "moon, moon" singles.

the rest can mostly be ignored. although each release has its moments, they seem kind of thrown together compared to the actual albums.

Whats with the small amount of talk about the Microphones?! I really figured there would be a large enough cult following to warrant more than about five posts per the three or four threads started. All together still not as much talk as I would have thought.

Just found "Tests" in a used bin for a dollar. I really like it!!

these guys are kinda boring except for a couple songs that are transcendent.

Yeah I feel like a lot of people think so, but I'm still surprised that there aren't more Phil worshippers talking about The Microphones. It certainly took a little bit for me to come around to their material beyond The Glow Pt. 2. Actually... "It Was Hot..." was hard to swallow, but the earlier stuff has grabbed me much quicker. I can't figure out if I'm just used to the style by now, or if "It Was Hot..." is really just an uneven listen. I'm thinking a tiny bit of both. I mean... isn't the unevenness just a stylistic element of The Microphones to begin with? Am I just having this conversation with myself? Yes. Probably. Yes.

I like the sound quality and the warmth of the records, but the songs just aren't that memorable to me. I feel like "the Glow Pt. 2" is an album that should change my life (if I listened to it on mushrooms) but so far it's failed to do anything of the sort.

There are absolutely some winners. The song "The Glow" is sprawling and fuzzy and folky and blissful. I really like it. The best stuff is from the Glow, Pt. 2. As a whole, the album is cool, since it folds in upon itself a whole bunch of times, referencing and re-referencing itself until it's basically just one song. I think he blew his wad on that though, because the next record "Mt. Eerie" did that too, but by then it seemed pretty abused.

Another uneven thing about Mr. Elverum is, when I saw him on the Glow, pt 2 tour, he played in a tiny room in Tallahasee with weird, playful lightbulb-under-robe effects and it was super intimate and wonderful. The next time I saw him was in Brooklyn and it was awful - he played way way way way way too long, while just standing with his back against the wall while strumming the same few chords on a guitar - he almost turned me off his music forever.

I always thought Microphones and Mark Kozolek solo material sounded incredibly alike.

Really? Mark Kozolek stuff to me has none of the quirk, and I think they have a very different sense of composition musically. Mark's stuff is bit closer to an accessible almost adult-contemporary listen. And The Microphones have always been about experimentation and being unconventional.

Sorry, Kozelek

(I think an album of solo acoustic tracks from him might actually blow away his whole back catalog so far -- and sell incredibly, if people's love of Conor Oberst is any indication.)

Thank fuck this never happened.

Really though, why are there not a million Microphones threads here on ILM? Seems like the kind of music this place lives for. Myself, I'm a pretty big fan -- jumped on board around It Was Hot, really enjoyed The Glow Pt. 2, and then was blown the fuck away by Mount Eerie (the album). I've heard bits and pieces of Mount Eerie the band, still working on more, but the new album Wind's Poem is so far fantastic, one of my favorites this year.

Anyone???

i have the glow pt. 2. it's better than, like, an elephant 6 album. but still something abt it rubs me the wrong way.

u really think this is the kind of music ILM lives for?

Mt Eerie is a really great record, my favourite Microphones for sure, but to date i have not really had any love for Mt Eerie the band. had basically given up by this point but the new one is getting raves so i will be dragged back in.

I very much like Mt. Eerie and The Glow pt.2, and some songs on the side. But I haven't checked his recent work yet.

xp yeah that's how I feel

It Was Hot = one of those records I listened over and over again in head-scratching confusion, trying to discern exactly what people were raving about. See also Wilco. At least Wilco had songs though, I remember having difficulty even locating anything like that on the Microphones album.

:'(

I'm a big fan, but I occasionally visit the mt. eerie/microphones messageboard, so I keep my standom there.

(I think an album of solo acoustic tracks from him might actually blow away his whole back catalog so far -- and sell incredibly, if people's love of Conor Oberst is any indication.)

He's actually had several releases like this, most recently Dawn, which was a bunch of tracks he wrote back in 2003 but didn't record until last year. It didn't sell incredibly, but a lot of people liked it. There was also a live 3XLP (Live in Copenhagen) that included songs covering most of his career, though it was heavier on Mount Eerie material.

To be honest though, I like his full fledged albums, with his production skillz and unique instrumentation, a lot better. Dude's prolific, and there are plenty of gems to be found in the piles of stuff he releases on 7 inches and picture discs and books, etc, but I mostly anticipate the LPs where he takes his time recording it.

I really like Wind's Poem.

I looked for Wind's Poem at three different Newbury Comics stores in the area, and as far as I could tell, none of them had it.

ANGER.

Just order it from his website:

http://www.pwelverumandsun.com/

was blown the fuck away by Mount Eerie (the album)

me too. i loved the glow pt. 2 before it, but now this just seems to stand head and shoulders above everything else. its not something that i play much now, though.

Good call, ZS

And SHIT, Phil's touring, and he's coming to Boston:

Weds. Oct. 28th- Boston, Mass.- Mass Art

I am DEFINITELY going to that show!

Ever seen him before? I only saw him once, in Columbia, but it was a good show. I've heard plenty of bootlegs, though, and he's really hit or miss. When he's on, it's awesome, but there are some shows that can understandably provoke the kind of reaction that okamax had upthread.

Haha, I'd be interested in hearing Nabisco's evaluation of Phil's recent relatively "organized" period. Personally I wouldn't mind a bit of swing back toward his more messy period (...What...is that "Good Vibrations"...BlAAAST of guitars)

I've never seen him, actually, although I could totally see why "he's really hit or miss." It's hard for me to imagine something like The Glow, Pt. II sounding as good live as it does on record. It's such a creation of the studio.

He doesn't even really try to recreate the sound of his albums when he plays live, for the most part. 90% of the time he plays it's just him alone, and when other people play with him it's almost always a one-off show, like the shows he did with Julie Doiron of Eric's Trip around the time that Lost Wisdom (which featured Doiron on vocals on all of the songs) came out, and some shows he did last year with his makeshift "black metal" band, around the time that Black Wooden Ceiling Opening was released.

seeing him in Anacortes a couple times has been fun. he seems more at ease and of course the shows are *odd*, him with a little casio or whatever

kshighway if you're interested check out http://www.archive.org/details/MountEerie , which has a bunch of live recordings.

Also, just in case you missed in, this is a must:

http://www.archive.org/details/SevenNewSongsofMountEerie

This was some mega rare (200 copies only, I think) release that he put out soon after he switched to the Mount Eerie moniker, and it has some of his very best songs. I guess he got sick of watching the collector-fetish thing happen on eBay, so he put the mp3s up on archive.org for free. Although, having free access to the songs on archive didn't really dampen the price of the original release, which goes for a shit ton of money whenever it shows up on eBay.

Anyway, "Wooly Mammoth's Absence" is one of the very best songs of his Mount Eerie years, and the others are fan favorites as well.

What's with the No Flashlight album? Is that some rare album as well, or is it quite available?

van smack, "No Flashlight" is up on Amazon mp3 for $8.99 (http://www.amazon.com/No-Flashlight/dp/B001DUM07M).

It's also on his official website in mp3 (http://theconnextion.com/pwelverumandsun/pwelverumandsun_index.cfm?ArtistID=497).

Z S, thanks for all that info! I think I'm going to check out the new LP, and perhaps Lost Wisdom.

I bought The Glow, Pt II in 2006, and haven't listened to much of Phil's work since . . . although I got Mount Eerie last week. Amazon mp3 has it for something like $6, which was too cheap to pass up.

You're welcome. If you don't dig the new stuff as much, but you still like The Glow, Pt. II and Mount Eerie, you should check out It Was Hot... and Don't Wake Me Up, his first two full lengths on K. His material as Mount Eerie has kind of went off in a different direction, one that I don't prefer as much, to be honest (No Flashlight is probably my least favorite full length he's ever done, but I like Wind's Poem a lot), but his early stuff is gold.

Holy damn, where did all these fans come from? This place hasn't ever really had anyone talking about Phil until now. Guess Wind's Poem is that good...

Anyone else have "Tests" by Microphones?

I do, although it's surely not an original issue. I bought it from Elsinor records a few years ago, back when they still carried it.

I'm not sure that any resurgent interest in Mount Eerie/Microphones is because of how good Wind's Poem is, but maybe because it's seen as a sort of return to form after the relative disappointment of No Flashlight and the kind of general direction he was going since Mount Eerie (the album). I could be wrong, though.

Well I was half kidding about Wind's Poem generating all of the new interest, but it does seem to sound like a return to the studio experimentation and instrumentation he was known for as The Microphones. Most (not all) of the Mount Eerie material to me is just mildly interesting acoustic songs that float right out the window. The interest he has in sounds on the Microphones albums really give them character.

Plus, when I revived the thread on July 3 it really didn't last long again, so thats why I connected it now to Wind's Poem.

((((((d-_-b))))))

still love these guys

Even if all he'd ever recorded was "The Pull," he'd still rank with me.

http://i52.tinypic.com/s29tw0.jpg

just two lonely guys thinking about things

lol is there any context for that?

not really...just saw it posted elsewhere and it made me lol!

lmao

coupeville is a little-assed town 25 mi south of anacortes. fwiw.

wellll he sorta did did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtuCP1ExC_I

oh nvm i see what you're sayin

pointless post 40824 of 73201: i've really enjoyed the LPs he's been putting out since Wind's Poem. tbh i thought he was pretty much on the downswing after 2003's mount eerie (the last microphones LP). The unique production that had once helped to mask some of the more mediocre songs in his first phase wasn't enough to save the weak underlying songs of No Flashlight. after that, he briefly ditched the production altogether (which i thought was like cutting off his own legs) and many of his recordings were just raw acoustic guitar and his voice. and...it kinda sucked! his lyrics have always tended toward the wide-eyed twee innocent, but what was enveloped in psychedelic folk became uncomfortable to listen to when stripped down to Dude in the Corner of the Room with a Guitar mode. lyrics that once sounded full of wonder suddenly sounded like self-help tracts when presented in Dude in the Corner of the Room with a Guitar mode (worst offender, Don't Smoke, literally a song telling people not to smoke that ends "There's no punishment, only knowing what to do, no excuses, the time is now, do not wait; go, improve yourself right now"). suddenly he was presenting answers, when he was always at his best asking questions, or just being lost, like in The Glow Pt II's "Map": "there's no flesh, there's no fingers in my hair, i see a tunnel / we built walls, tall and solid between the treasure and the shovel". 2008's Dawn, featuring acoustic recordings of a bunch of songs he wrote in rural Norway while pulling a proto-Bon Iver (ewwww) in 2003 after a breakup, exemplified the problem. The wonder was gone, and what was left sounded almost...cranky!

of course, looking back at his catalog from 2004-2008, i see abundant evidence that he was recording all sorts of stuff that was different than stripped down guitar+voice. but having ravenously snagged these recordings as they were released at the time, i remember that they sounded more like one-offs and novelties than new directions. 2005's Singers was just a big choir singing a bunch of his songs, and veered uncomfortably close to an acoustic Polyphonic Spree recording session. Eleven Old Songs of Mount Eerie, also from 2005, featured him butchering every song with an old Casio, and it is uniformly terrible.

when he started releasing his black-metal tinged recordings (2007's Mount Eerie pts 6 and 7 (a 10" that came with an expensive photobook that no one bought), 2008's Black Wooden Ceiling Opening, another 10"), i took it as another pastiche. but he's stuck with it, and particularly in his twin LPs from 2012 its influence is apparent in the composition of his music, gliding and patient.

anyway, go mount eerie

I think that's pretty otm. I think around the time of No Flashlight he had a Bob Pollard-esque epiphany that he had a decent-sized fanbase of the will-buy-literally-anything-with-his-name-on-it variety and he cashed the fuck in. There's a lot of dreadful stuff in that time period. But yeah, these last couple records have been headed in the right direction. Clear Moon is my favorite since Mount Eerie.

Z S otm, but what do you make of Lost Wisdom?

I got heavily into The Microphones in about 2004 and started buying the Mount Eerie stuff that came out shortly afterwards. I'll still stick up for No Flashlight (and I even think Eleven Songs has some merit) but I soon realised there was no point trying to track down everything he put out and lost interest for a few years. Lost Wisdom was really great though, probably my favourite of his albums after The Glow Pt. 2. I also found that Dawn thing quite handy as it meant finally having properly-recorded versions of things like 'Great Ghosts' (I only bought the download though, not the fancy limited edition book). Of this year's releases, I thought Clear Moon was great but I couldn't get into the latest one at all. I think I'm back to being a fan though.

I agree with you Z S. I think it's kind of too bad, too, cause some of my favourite Elvrum songs are from his uh 'Rose Period'... "I say no", for example, I love that song. (Hate the recording of it but loved hearing it live a couple times)

van horn street, i thought lost wisdom was ok, and i know some microphone megastans who love it, but i don't really listen to it much. to me it was kind of like a bandaid (julie doiron's awesome voice) but with the same underlying issues (quiet, acoustic arrangements that never really go anywhere, repetition that seems more the product of a lack of ideas rather than a choice).

and of course, i have no problem with him performing stripped down acoustic songs. the problem is that he had done it before, and so much better. "woolly mammoth's absence", for example (see my copy+paste below). or "headless horseman" from the glow, pt 2. but while the "headless horseman" stood out because it was so quiet and untreated and clear, sequenced between the saxophone mayhem of "the moon" and the monolithic piano chord echoes of "my roots are strong and deep", the songs of Lost Wisdom are flat and consistent. it seemed like a positive step at the time because it didn't contain any obvious clunkers,and doiron's voice is a pleasure to listen to, but when i listen to it now it just sounds like antidepressants, the lows and highs both removed.

Also, just in case you missed in, this is a must:

http://www.archive.org/details/SevenNewSongsofMountEerie

This was some mega rare (200 copies only, I think) release that he put out soon after he switched to the Mount Eerie moniker, and it has some of his very best songs. I guess he got sick of watching the collector-fetish thing happen on eBay, so he put the mp3s up on archive.org for free. Although, having free access to the songs on archive didn't really dampen the price of the original release, which goes for a shit ton of money whenever it shows up on eBay.

Anyway, "Wooly Mammoth's Absence" is one of the very best songs of his Mount Eerie years, and the others are fan favorites as well.

― ZS69 (Z S), Saturday, August 22, 2009 5:44 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so I got Clear Moon from emusic sometime last year and never got around to playing it until I ran across somebody posting lyrics somewhere and I listened to it last night and tonight - I haven't really paid att'n to what Phil's been up to in ages, I loved It Was Hot, We Stayed In the Water and The Glow, Pt. 2 but I sort of just didn't keep up - I would hear things here or there that didn't hold me. Clear Moon strikes me as a very, very solid album with some really, really good lyrics and its overall effect is weighty and awesome imo.

yeah, it's pretty great! i enjoyed it the first time, and i like it more and appreciate new things about it every time i listen to it. did you grab Ocean Roar as well?

I didn't, no. I have emusic and Clear Music happened to be on the front page one day and I thought "wow, at one point I was really into the Microphones, I should see what dude is up to." I'm always more interested in how he can meld his sonic vision with his songwriting instinct - when he gets into indie-dub territory I can dig it but I don't feel super compelled to hunt it down.

man, people who really dig the vibe Phil Elverum was into in the earlier parts of the 2000s really really need to check out Wyrd Visions' Half-Eaten Guitar, which was apparently originally released in 2006. Phil reissued it on his label (PW Elverum & Sun). it sounds out of time. it makes sense as a 2014 release i guess, but a good chunk of it sounds like john fahey on a loop (meant in the best possible way). it manages to evoke the spirit of Phil's best work without sounding imitative at all. 'Bog Lord' is just a hell of a composition, very bizarrely natural sounding, and by the end when he's spelling out the name of his band it seems like the only possible way to end the song. i know i'm making it sound terrible but i love it.

the first 20 seconds of bog lord sound like it's going to be some twee bullshit and then the backing accordion and guitar accompaniment that enter lift the curtain on some disturbing shit

bullshit --> disturbing shit

i apologize for my incoherency but it's worth your time

also since i'm on an annoying roll i'll just add that fans of six organs of admittance would almost certainly appreciate the closing track on this, 'Air-Conditioning'

sounds like john fahey on a loop

you've got my attention. you have lots of good thoughts on phil elverum itt

ha, glad you think so! but every time i post itt i'm off the edge wine drunk. case in point, i'm pretty sure my post from may 24 2012 had no awareness of my may 4 2012 post

lol, hadn't spotted that. BOG LORD is really strange, this is nothing like microphones/mount eerie or really anything else i've heard

i agree that it sounds really strange, but what's great about the album is that by the time you get to it (it's the 4th track out of 5 longish songs) it makes sense. the album is wonderful, and it brings back the great feeling of the microphones material in that you want to introduce people to it but somehow no single song makes sense without the context of the rest of the album.

yeah listening to sigill I have decided I love this. looping chants make it feel ancient & the acoustic guitar sounds so heavy

i wish i could get people that are into modern psychedelic heavy loop music to listen to this, but i don't think the microphones thread is the proper channel to do it

I like the Microphones. I will listen to it soon!

xp what are you thinking of re: 'modern psychedelic heavy loop music' ?

oh, that's probably the wine talking - especially the 'loop' part, and er the 'modern' part - but i guess i'm just thinking of fans of stuff like boris and ben chasny loop and maybe growing

gotcha, and yeah phil elverum is definitely outside or any obv existant scene & kind of ignored like all true mumblers

i wish i had a really good definition and examples of modern psychedelic heavy loop music because that sounds like my dream station

shall we have a thread or is there no point?

How about the band Loop? Like, duh.

i would guess that there's no point, but i'm of the floaty opinion that there is no point to pretty much anything. also, he only has this one release and there doesn't appear to be anything else at all!

How about the band Loop? Like, duh.

yeah, i mentioned them a few posts above but forgot to add a comma after chasny!

Oh! Yes.

Phil Elverum ‏@PWElverum 8m
House show in Minot, ND tomorrow will be a big final Mount Eerie concert, one of many retirements. Chilling for a while.

:-/

that is not an example but he is so good at twitter

https://twitter.com/PWElverum/status/370019017152409600

lol

new album alert: http://www.pwelverumandsun.com/store

http://www.pwelverumandsun.com/images/ELV036.jpg

Sauna

official release date: Feb. 3rd, 2015
This is a new and ultimate Mount Eerie album. “Vikings and zen and real life” are the reference points. All of the song titles are single words and some of the songs are very long. This is music meant to weigh heavy on you like a lot of cold water at night, and also the sword glimmering at the bottom of the lake at night.

Twelve songs, 55 minutes total, inhabiting two high resolution 45rpm LPs, super-pretty heavy old-style gatefold jackets, jumbo poster, download card… the works.

also this video i can't watch right now because i'm at work:

http://vimeo.com/111467812

oh, oops. i guess this is old news. http://www.stereogum.com/1718703/mount-eerie-sauna-details/news/

i was just excited because i happened to be on twitter and saw that he had posted about it a few minutes prior and thought i was on the cutting edge of the internet for a moment.

tracklist:
01 Sauna
02 Turmoil
03 Dragon
04 Emptiness
05 (something)
06 Boat
07 Planets
08 Pumpkin
09 Spring
10 Books
11 This
12 Youth

fuck this is so so sad
http://pitchfork.com/news/65886-phil-elverum-seeks-donations-for-wifes-cancer-treatment/

they just had a baby...good god

Oh, that's awful. Wow. Thank you for sharing, I'll pass that along.

She didn't make it :(

https://www.gofundme.com/elverum?viewupdates=1&utm_source=internal&utm_medium=email&utm_content=cta_button&utm_campaign=upd_n

No

So sad. Everyone should go to the site and donate.

that's really crushing

Phil's eulogy is heartbreaking.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1160212074020727&id=100000958379080

http://68.media.tumblr.com/60b453bbd2c5df002036ce843945c68d/tumblr_oizc044YbN1rx4hiao2_1280.jpg

"they carry all of my releases year-round, not counting the forthcoming album containing these new songs."

good to see him making music and playing out again, although i don't know how he's doing it.

whoops: full size image at http://pwelverumandsun.tumblr.com/ if that's too small

I hope he knows everyone is rooting for him

Would love to go to this..I'm in Vancouver, not too far...

Saw Phil several years back when he first started out as Mount Eerie in a overly hot non air conditioned room. He would play guitar for a few songs, jump on the piano and if something wasn't right, he would stop and switch to something else. Unique experience to say the least.