Mount Eerie - No Flashlight

yeah. but the artist's impulse to channel grief & negative energy into something productive is very real. i completely understand the intent and purpose but will never listen to it.

not getting accusatory but I wonder about the underlying attitude to death and/or art that leads ppl to hear heartbreakingly tender expressions of grief as masochistic or abusive

the fact that I found the last album hard to listen to speaks to my failing to face the intensity of it, not to a failure to express himself in a more palatable manner

I don't understand the surprise, it's as if people think he could or should have done something else. his insistence on being the same gentle, self-aware, ironic, simple, warm person is what makes these songs so devastating, but also inspiring, like if Phil can keep being Phil through this then mb there's hope for the rest of us

echoing meaulnes there. I'll echo KM too and say the song about the astrup paintings is really special

i don't think it's surprising, and i don't think the intent was masochistic or abusive, it's just the effect. and

the fact that I found the last album hard to listen to speaks to my failing to face the intensity of it, not to a failure to express himself in a more palatable manner

it's not a failing of the album, or an indictment, it's just that vicariously experiencing intense unfiltered grief feels horrible (to me)

some bizarre hubris in this thread, as if it matters even one tiny little bit what effect this music has on anyone besides Phil

otm, static. i've said my piece already. phil is not making music to suit you.

i mean if you're sharing art then yeah it matters what effect this music has on others. not that it takes away from what it does for the artist but xp

although "for" is an interesting word, and i guess i have mixed feelings about what it "means" elsewhere, e.g. the new camp cope record not being "for" cis white men. maybe it's hypocritical of me but it feels easier to say it doesn't matter what the people a record isn't for in that sense think than in this case bc it's a kind of person, a range of experience to which it testifies (and thus a range to which it doesn't) as opposed to one single person's, which. if no one else's opinion matters, then the point of sharing the art is for purely transactional purposes. which is not a bad thing, i'd like to support phil, but certainly a piece of art has the ability to be more than that

and thus should be able to be judged on it. if that's the compromise of sharing art w the world, i think it's a fair trade for the medium's inherent commhnication. and i feel like if you don't feel that way it'd be kind of disgusting to listen to it?

maybe "disgusting" is too strong but... weird. idk

agree with the above. the notion that it's hubristic or even insensitive to criticise this as music is deranged

phil's a big lad, he can look after himself

you don’t have to twist yourself into a pretzel justifying your criticism. Phil put this music out, we didn’t break into his house & listen to it. the idea of any music being beyond reproach is incredibly silly

i didn't say it's insensitive or unfair to criticize the music. i said it doesn't matter what anyone thinks or feels about this music except Phil.

i was reacting to this bs: "I feel like it's abusive toward a listener-with-a-critical ear to inflict upon them music like this."

reading your own interpretation into others' words is deranged and silly.

to clarify, i disagree w both statements

i brought up judgment bc if no one else's opinion matters, there's no point in criticism. not that it's wrong, just meaningless, both of which don't work for me

i didn't say it's insensitive or unfair to criticize the music. i said it doesn't matter what anyone thinks or feels about this music except Phil.

this applies to all music criticism. eric otm

http://www.talkhouse.com/autographing-im-sorry-please-no-id-much-rather-not-sign-record-sorry-please/

thinking back to the times when i would ask artists for autographs, age ~13-15, these weren't just "regular people": these were adults who looked cool as hell who made music that stirred your teenage soul who were in town for one night only. they were archetypal cool role models who inspired you to start a band. if they weren't my parents or teachers or used book and camera store clerks, how would i have any sort of regular social relationship with them?

as an adult i definitely sympathize with phil's position but i do hope that it doesn't hurt his soul when teenagers ask for his autograph

i said it doesn't matter what anyone thinks or feels about this music except Phil.

on a message board with people with opinions about music

good review: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/mount-eerie-now-only/

it does a better job of describing how 'now only' is different in concept and execution than "a crow looked at me", and it's clear the writer is deeply familiar with elverum's music

This album is astonishing

certainly different to the last, but maybe just as good.

I really love this album, much more than ACLAM which I respect but never really want to listen to. possibly my favourite of his since The Glow pt. 2

it feels more melodic than ACLAM and the long track lengths give room for the music to shift with the lyrics. the lyrics being a bit greater in scope than just the raw grief does help to make it an easier listen

He figured out how to make Kozelek's current shtick listenable/meaningful.

Yeah the similarities to Mark Kozelek's recent stuff are definitely there, but such different dudes. The paintings song is the one I'm going back again and again. Thanks to the poster upthread who posted the image also.

no prob! i didn't know anything Astrup before hearing the song. His work is amazing and I'd love to see it in person. "Midsummer Eve Bonfire" is actually a series of paintings, so it took a while to figure out which one he was referring to specifically.

although i do think that Now Only is definitely so much more than just ACLAM pt 2, i can definitely sympathize with those upthread who still find the subject matter too uncomfortable to bear. like ufo said, the lyrics have an expanded scope, but there are still lots of very intense, painful, ACLAM-style passages.

lots of press/interviews for Now Only that i haven't gotten around to reading yet:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/03/mount-eerie-now-only-interview-phil-elverum/555485/

Totally agree, in that people might refrain from the new one, but 'Now Only' is indeed so much more that ACLAM pt 2. We have a rolling worst P4K thread, wholly justified, but that review you posted KM is absolutely wonderful. So understanding, down to the nitty-gritty, and so compassionate in judging this new album on its merits, instead of just on its narrative. The latter, I can see why, would scare away a lot of people. But 'Now Only' is a beautiful beast, in its own right.

from that atlantic interview, it sounds like there might be more to come in this vein:

Kornhaber: Was there any trepidation about doing two albums in a row in the same mode, on this same topic?

Elverum: Not at all. It wasn’t over. I had more to say still. And I didn’t want to stay in that feeling of A Crow Looked at Me. I knew the only way out of it was to continue writing songs. There wasn’t even really a gap in the production. I just kept writing.

I almost made Now Only a lot longer—there was this one song I’ve been trying to write for a long time, and I’m still chewing on that. That would be part three. Three seems like a good number to wrap up with and then do something else.

Kornhaber: So it might be a trilogy.

Elverum: Maybe, but I’m not holding too tight to that idea. I have been feeling happier lately, and more healed. I don’t think there’s going to be an end to grief. It’s a lifelong process and this loss will be with me forever. But lately I’ve been not dwelling in it so much.

in a reddit AMA recently he mentioned that Benji was an influence on the lyrics of the last two albums, as it helped him to realise that poetry and metaphor could be abandoned for blank honesty

of course, this album is much much better than any of Kozelek's recent material

there's a little bit on that in the atlantic interview, too:

Kornhaber: Death is one of the great topics of art through history. Did anything about how culture has portrayed grief ring false to you once you went through it yourself?

Elverum: It all felt false. In my time of being just destroyed, I went through all my poetry books and nothing spoke to me.

No, that’s not true—there’s this one Gary Snyder poem [“Go Now”] that cracked things open for me in a really useful way. It’s written basically in the same style as A Crow Looked at Me, very graphic about the mechanics of disease and the death of his wife: the cremation, the smell, her teeth jutting out. No poetry involved. Just describing it. That opened up for me the idea of I don’t have to interpret this. I don’t have to make it pretty or find wisdom in it at all. It’s okay to just describe what happened, then leave it at that. There’s no lesson.

Listened to this straight through today, sat in my local university library staring st the snow. It was perfect. I can remember entire sections of the lyrics, impressionistically at least - like it was transfusion as much as listening. Almost tempted to say I'll never listen to it again.

Meet Phil Elverum, Michelle Williams’s husband. The actress married the acclaimed singer-songwriter (who performs as Mount Eerie) this month. https://t.co/qNBmtHFxIr

— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) July 26, 2018

uh

WOW

I really don't care about this sort of thing at all normally but this is cuet, good for them imo

yeah good for them! also what

yeah, it's like cool, but also, wait what?

i know this is terrible but i'm imagining the next album being a similarly blunt, stream-of-conscious style take on meeting billy crystal backstage at the people's choice awards or something

huh, shitty to name his daughter when he seemed pretty against it in every interview from the past couple of years, hope they're all happy though.

Relevant section from the main article:

By the time you read this, she and her partner, singer-songwriter Phil Elverum, whom she met through a mutual friend, will have been married in a secret ceremony in the Adirondacks, witnessed by only a handful of friends and their two daughters. Her new husband, an indie musician who records and performs under the name Mount Eerie (and, before that, the Microphones), also lost a partner in tragic circumstances while parenting a small child. His late wife, illustrator and musician Geneviève Castrée, was diagnosed with inoperable stage-4 pancreatic cancer in 2015, four months after the birth of their daughter, and the two very private artists went public with a GoFundMe page to help defray medical costs. Castrée died 13 months later, in July 2016, leaving Elverum with an 18-month-old daughter. In the past two years, he has released two raw, critically acclaimed albums, A Crow Looked at Me and Now Only, that unflinchingly explore grief, death, and the utility of art in the face of loss. Williams calls her relationship with Elverum “very sacred and very special.” In July, he packed up his home in Anacortes, Washington, and drove across the country to live with her and their daughters in Brooklyn.

“I never gave up on love,” she later tells me, saying that she has spent the 10 years since Ledger’s death looking for the kind of “radical acceptance” she felt from him. “I always say to Matilda, ‘Your dad loved me before anybody thought I was talented, or pretty, or had nice clothes.’ ” I can hear her voice crack. She sometimes can’t believe that she’s found this kind of love, at last. “Obviously I’ve never once in my life talked about a relationship,” she says, “but Phil isn’t anyone else. And that’s worth something. Ultimately the way he loves me is the way I want to live my life on the whole. I work to be free inside of the moment. I parent to let Matilda feel free to be herself, and I am finally loved by someone who makes me feel free.”

Williams decided to open up about her relationship, as she did about her income, on the chance that other women might find hope or instruction in her story. “I don’t really want to talk about any of it,” she says. “But there’s that tease, that lure, that’s like, What if this helps somebody? What if somebody who has always journeyed in this way, who has struggled as much as I struggled, and looked as much as I looked, finds something that helps them?” In the end, she says, what she’s learned is simple: “Don’t settle. Don’t settle for something that feels like a prison, or is hard, or hurts you,” she says. “If it doesn’t feel like love, it’s not love.”

imagining the next album being a similarly blunt, stream-of-conscious style take on meeting billy crystal backstage at the people's choice awards or something

Sheryl Crow Looked At Me

lol

well, as others have said, good for them! i don't know anything about michelle williams but from that little snippet she seems cool

nice to think about greatest showman money funding 50 more mount eerie records

Damn

This is cool

Also the Adirondacks rule, so good choice.

Amazing news