The Microphones - Mount Eerie

The Microphones do not make easy records, nor does Phil Elverum; you can't separate the band from the principal songwriter and producer, so you shouldn't try. But that's fitting for a group whose four albums argue for, and I'm paraphrasing here, nothing less than "the united theory of everything."



The Microphones' last record, Mount Eerie, is their most ambitious.  While vestiges of their indie folk origins are present, especially on the lovely "II. Solar System," elsewhere the music's grown wooly and unruly. Album opener "I. The Sun" features snippets of Microphones past, a throbbing low E string heartbeat, several minutes of manic percussion and stuttering guitar. Over 17 minutes long and packed with references spanning The Microphones' labyrinthine catalog, it establishes Mount Eerie's uncompromising vision: spin K Record's dinky instrumentation and low fidelity into massive, sprawling song cycles.

At its best, Mount Eerie is every bit as majestic as Elverum's vision, but occasionally its too-clever references to Elverum's band and label leave the music perched precariously on the edge of self-conscious parody. Case in point: according to his movement-by-movement explanation of the record, Elverum found inspiration for "IV. Mt. Eerie" in a Bubba Sparxxx song.

This is a needy record, cantankerous in its contradictions. A lo-fi album for headphones. A deeply personal meditation on isolation and mortality that features an entire cast of characters, among them K Records founder Calvin Johnson. Those unfamiliar with Elverum's handmade cosmos might find scaling Mount Eerie an onerous task, but it's worth it. The view from the top is breathtaking.