Mount Eerie - No Flashlight

it's so sad, but i don't struggle to listen to it ... except maybe the part about the backpack. that's tough.

I think Phil does manage to have a good sense of humour and levity despite the heartbreak, which does make the album easier to listen to.

Personally still I don't feel compelled to listen to it regularly, I just majorly hope it has helped him.

I am not sure whether I agree that "unlike many works about grief, though, there is no glance towards redemptive larger meaning, which makes it all the more bracing". I think that actually in recent years there were a lot of critically acclaimed albums (particularly Carrie & Lowell and Skeleton Tree) that seemed to acknowledge meaninglessness of death and they were also a lot less poetical, artistic and a lot more minimalistic than previous records of those artists. But in my opinion this album in a way none of those albums have before poses the question that seemed to be beside the point - after all is it art or is it not art? Some people here find it unlistenable. Some people find it strangely alluring, I actually have listened to this quite a bit. We can probably all agree it's not meant to be art and it doesn't even try, musically or lyrically, to be art, it doesn't offer any explanation, solace, there's really nothing to be learned from it and most people listening probably won't even be able to emphatise with what Phil has gone trough but in the end isn't communicating reality what art is all about? In My Chasms Phil asks "do the people around me want to keep hearing about my dead wife?" and for some reason, yeah, they do. :|

I guess what I am trying to say is it's really hard and maybe even shameful to pinpoint what exactly I am getting out of this album

Nice post piramjida

This is also Phil's most functional album yet, I think. Musically and arrangement-wise it's as spare as some of his live recordings and unadorned - which serves the content of the songs and emotion well. It probably wouldn't make much sense to be as layered or particular as his other work.

I still have put off listening to it, but i found even listening to two of my absolutely favourite Phil songs ("Don't Smoke" and "Get Off The Internet") all of a sudden way more heavy, given their life-is-short sentiments.

The very fact that this album exists blows my mind most of the time. The idea of this just being out there, unprotected. It is real. I have this on vinyl, it is in my hands and it's spinning now. A not so gentle reminder of naked, ugly, barren, terrible death; Phil doesn't even try to portray death in a "romantic" way, and he shouldn't, because it's so stark and heartbreaking and real. This really makes me hate any 'romantic' notion of death. In movies, in music, in culture. Which was always something to cling to (in dire need, seek the 'romantic' in things, in bad things, in death...). Doesn't happen here.

Me loving this album leaves me feeling completely inadequate as a human being dealing with loss. I still have no single clue what to do with this album, how to feel listening to it. It feels like I need to either put up a fight or give it up all together. Like there is no leeway, no middle ground. This schism, perhaps, is precisely the point. Nothing makes sense, and that's ok, and here's why etc.

Death is real.

Amazing album

When I was much younger "Maps" by Microphones helped me deal with break up blues.

I hope Phil is able to process what happened and I'll always support him, expressing through art is a gift in the worse of times. I hope he finds peace

this album is utterly devastating and awfully difficult to get through. it's ACCURATE which is a strange thing to say about art but it feels right to say so.

european tour coming up, I hope for his sake he's playing plenty of things besides this album

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKHVWR7XcAY9zMI.jpg

i would guess he is not. he probably will one day, but i think for now he feels like these songs are the only songs he has.

i am doing some educated speculating, of course.

Lot of Norway shows

great news, he's not just playing songs from a Crow...

By the time Elverum had left the stage, he had played an equal number of album and non-album songs, all about Geneviève.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/in-a-room-listening-to-phil-elverum-sing-about-his-wifes-death

Quick question, the last song on A Crow Looked... is the first track to actually say 'Geneviève' right?

The non album songs on this tour (ie new songs, about Geneviève) are of much the same texture and content. And beautiful. But definitely not a reprieve from those feelings.

my friend saw him recently and the material he is playing is in line with what sean is saying. I saw Phil years back when he was first debuting Mt. Eerie and at that time he only played one recognizable song, "The Blow Pt. 2" and the rest was new songs/songs off newer live records. Not sure he would ever really go back to Microphones material, for better or worse

I watched a video of the new song he's been opening all his shows with recently, "Distortion." good god, what a song - 11 minutes long, essentially one finger picked guitar figure, devastating words just tumbling out... i haven't listened to A Crow Looked at Me since it came out, I couldn't make it past 4 songs...

yes I've listened to it once all the way through and am not sure when I'll feel like listening again. I saw him play with genevieve/woelv years ago and likewise didn't recognise much at all, it was fantastically low key: he wandered around barefoot meandering in and out of songs; she got everyone to harmonise with her. it seems like it will be such a strange gig

re: my last post, i was thinking songs from his past. non-album songs written since G's death, yes, *that* makes sense.

i still think he may never go back to stuff he wrote before she passed.

I'm seeing him at the Le Guess Who? festival. I have played his latest lp fairly often, it's a personal thing, the way he translates grief into song just resonates with me. But that 11 minute 'Distortion' video, I saw it too, is just too much. I don't know if I can bear it, live.

yeah i mean i get that Phil needs to go through these emotions to heal and I would never judge that, but I dunno, I can't listen to music in this tone much these days. I remember putting it on for a friend and he told me to turn it off in one second flat. It's understandably a downer

I was listening to a Slowdive artist radio station on Spotify on the way home on the bus and "Real Death" came up and Lord that song is like a punch in the gut

I really did like this the one time I listened through it, and I will listen to it again soon, perhaps

new album Now Only out March 16.

1. Tintin in Tibet
2. Distortion
3. Now Only
4. Earth
5. Two Paintings by Nikolai Astrup
6. Crow, Pt. 2

live versions of:

tintin in tibet and
distortion

xp this is... unexpected. Did not expect him to return this quick. Though thinking about it, it's the most logical and best thing for him to do.

Yeah I'm really glad he's doing this, wasn't expecting it either but he played at least half of these songs (if not all of them) throughout his tour last year. I can't wait to hear "Distortion," that song is stunning, and one I've listened to more than anything on A Crow Looked at Me. that record is remarkable, but I can't listen to it. I've never heard or seen anything that approaches the raw grief and directness of that record, it's unbearable for me to listen to. "Distortion" is more refined and completely captivating.

I'm shying away from the live youtube videos I think, and rather have the new songs served raw on my plate. Though "new songs" feels odd to say: A Crow Looked At Me has lived with me all year, and yet it still feels unrelentingly new every time I play it. I can see why you'd have a hard time listening to it; I had that, at first. Now I mostly prefer to live inside it and dread everything that's outside of it.

in montreal he said with his newest songs he wanted to tell people more about genevieve (rather than mostly meditating on her death)... not sure if this is still how he envisions it.

I actually once watched a video of "Distortion" in full once. Bits and pieces here and there, but still more than ACLAM- I've still only gotten 4 songs into that.

..
lol i just realized the acronym is ACLAM. takes the edge off tbh

A BOLD CLAM

Crow looked at me is the only mt eerie I wouldn't relisten to

thought Two Paintings by Nikolai Astrup was fantastic when I heard it live

"Distortion" is up here now:

https://soundcloud.com/p-w-elverum

It just struck me that Elverum is basically doing the same thing Mark Kozelek now does - wistful first-person autobiographical narratives over drifting guitar-based instrumentals - only it's great instead of terrible

yeah, that's exactly how i described A CLAM to a friend

in montreal he said with his newest songs he wanted to tell people more about genevieve (rather than mostly meditating on her death)... not sure if this is still how he envisions it.

― sean gramophone, Wednesday, January 17, 2018 12:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I always thought it was interesting that Phil didn't straight out say her name until the last song on ACLAM

wow that new track is great

A Crow Looked At Me was good but also not something I really ever want to listen to again

simon - i recall reading that phil was very much influenced by kozelek for his approach of late. new cover art seems very eric's trip/elevator to hell inspired, too - one of his biggest influences...

phil's always been direct and down-to-earth, anyway. i think his sense of humour was lost on a lot of people at a show i went to last year (leeds, UK). i suppose it was very much a traveling funeral for genevieve. i left feeling love, though. it was also very admirable to see him working his own merch stand both before and after his set. phil's always been very real and one of the hardest working independent musicians i know of since day one.

also to digress some: hello ILM it feels like this is the only forum on the internet i personally really visit anymore. i was chatting with kiran leonard (manchester musician and guitar player on moshi moshi) about how the centralized internet has led to people straying away from forums and smaller communities. feels like about ten years ago last.fm and other places were so much more active. i miss forums a lot and facebook groups just don't feel like good communities anymore!

that leeds show wrecked me but i enjoyed the weird sound of the audience realising it was ok to laugh. also hi

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/08/590957789/first-listen-mount-eerie-now-only

on first listen this is incredible and powerful, and i think i'll be spending much more time with it than A Crow Looked At Me

so far, file under 'much like the last one', which is like, nice and all, but gruelling

I miss his microphones stuff

i think "distortion" is one of his most microphone-y songs in a while, in it's own way.

Distortion is amazing, might be his masterpiece

i have to say, i don't really like the arrangements for "now only" and the first half of "earth", and they work against the lyrics in a way that seems intentional but that also out of character with the rest of the album (and the last). but really that's a small portion of the album, and it's bookended by the excellent pair of openers and the "crow pt 2" at the end

the stretch from 3:00-end of "Earth" is some of the most beautiful music he's recorded, i think. and "Two Paintings by Nikolai Astrup" also opens up about halfway into something that i like more (and the paintings he's talking about are great as well)

Flappy ??? Masterpiece? Surely that's the glow

The song