Mount Eerie's Clear Moon

Man, that Phil Elverum can do anything...Clear Moon is one of his quieter efforts, but still pretty intense. It's a prelude to the upcoming Oceans Roar, both recorded in the same church with the same instruments and people, but said to be quite different. (We'll see, won't we?)

Anyway, my review ran at Blurt today.

Mount Eerie
Clear Moon
(P.W. Elverum and Son)

A gorgeous hush in the midst of monumental turmoil, tranquility in a hurricane, Phil Elverum's Mount Eerie has always had a knack for evoking nature's harshest and most beautiful elements, often at the same time. Clear Moon, one of two Mount Eerie albums set for release this year, is said to be clearer, cleaner, less tumultuous than its sibling Oceans Roar (coming in September). Yet there's plenty of heft in these nocturnal musings.

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Frederick Squire

Another good one from the Blue Fog label, up in Canada. The label is run by Rick White, who was in Eric’s Trip. Julie Doiron was also in Eric’s Trip and this is her friend and collaborator Fred Squire, whom some of you might remember from that really exquisite Mount Eerie album Lost Wisdom a few years ago. The record’s called March 12 and it’s been out for a while.

A ghostly aura hangs around Frederick Squire’s “You Sing High and We Will Sing High,” the loveliest and best of this solo debut’s 10 songs. It’s in the piano, its oddly echoing notes sounding as if they come not just from another room, but a barely remembered time. It’s in the smoke-ring harmonies that curl in wreathes around Squires whispery vocals. And it’s in the melody itself, which lofts upward weightlessly, wafting up in octave-size leaps, without a hint of physical strain. The song itself is simple, sparsely arranged for piano, guitar and voice and closely tied to traditions like folk, gospel and blues. Yet, it seems to transcend this simplicity, opening a door into a strange, haunted landscape.

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“The Future of Tradition”

Mount Eerie and Julie Doiron

Another really gorgeous record to somehow shoe-horn into the top-ten...this one from Microphones/Mount Eerie's Phil Elverum and ex-Eric's Trip bassist Julie Doiron. Here's a bit from my Dusted review, up today:

Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron & Fred Squire
Lost Wisdom
P.W. Elverum & Sun

Elverum and Doiron both have a knack for absolute simplicity. Lost Wisdom is not a long album – clocking in at just under 25 minutes – nor is it especially elaborate. Most of the songs rely on voice and guitar alone to make their case. And yet, how splendid they are, layered and looped in madrigals rounds and descants ("Voice in Headphones") or nakedly unadorned ("Flaming Home").

Still, no matter how lush or spare the vocal arrangements become, the voices themselves remain clear and simple. Elverum and Doiron often join in very tight, mildly dissonant, minor harmonies, the timbres of their two voices melding into one flickering tone. There is no vibrato, no growls or shrieks, almost no dynamic variation. If you had to pick an instrument to approximate their singing, it would have to be the recorder, blown softly and melancholically, without trills or flourishes. By shunning all vocal tricks, Elverum and Doiron arrive at a purity that is in no way dumbed down.

The rest is here.


"Flaming Home"

My show got cancelled last night, unfortunately, so I won't have much to say about the glories of the Dodos or Au.