On the Record with Mount Eerie

By Amy Kaufman
Published: October 26th, 2008 | 12:00pm

Regardless of whether you know him as the Microphones or as his most current pseudonym, Mount Eerie, Phil Elverum knows how to crank out a beautifully ominous tune.

On his recent album, Lost Wisdom (P.W. Elverum and Sun), Elverum fully embraces the folksy hymns which were subtly laid down in the backgrounds of his past recordings. Featuring the beautiful and effortless vocals of Julie Doiron, Lost Wisdom is saturated with hollow, bone-chilling harmonies.

Predominantly acoustic and undeniably melody-driven, Doiron’s guitarist Fred Squire, also featured on the album, peppers in minimalist electric guitar and remains somewhat inconspicuous, allowing for the perfect showcase of lyrics and vocals.

In the spare moments he hadn't divvied up between his record label, upcoming releases, and a fully-booked tour, Elverum took a break to tell us about a couple of earworm albums to add some color to the bleak fall season.

Wyrd Visions
Eaten Guitar (Bluefrog)

I like this album because it’s really difficult to talk about. I don't really know what kind of music it is: quiet spiritual metal? Natural psychedelic? The whole thing feels like an authentic, bog spirit–summoning-ceremony field recording rather than a dude playing music. New magical world created and entered!

G.I.Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann
The music of Gurdjieff & deHartmann (G-H)

This is a three-CD set of 220 minutes of the sparsest piano doodling ever. I can't really wrap my mind around it, yet it’s so beautiful, and sad, and soothing. As far as I can tell, G.I. Gurdjieff was an esoteric, Armenian mystic who had some weird ideas and followers. Thomas deHartmann helped translate his vaguely eastern piano improvisations into actual repeatable music. This set is deHartmann playing this music sometime in the ’40s, I think. He starts talking in the middle of it. It sounds like there is a blanket on top of everything. It sounds like you are looking out the window, and the snow is blowing around, and a candle is burning in dark-blue, winter, evening light.

Xasthur
Subliminal Genocide (Hydra Head)

Xasthur might be my favorite band (actually just one dude, Malefic, in outer L.A.). All his albums are good, but this one is particularly solid. It’s black metal that is not corny, which is difficult to do it seems. The wall of the distortion is so impenetrable that it becomes soothing. His "singing" is so buried and broad that it is easy to mistake it for loud wind. The key to this music is to play it at a loud enough volume that you can't hear anything else, to get completely inside the sound. Listening into the dense distortion, you can start to hear the most beautiful things. Plus, it's so powerful. It reminds me of what the core of the earth must sound like, roaring magma, etc.

Angelo Badalamenti
Twin Peaks soundtrack (Warner Brothers)

So much of this is nostalgia, sure. But really, who would have thought that long synth drones would match wet douglas fir boughs so well? Lately at every show here in Anacortes at the Department of Safety [a music venue], we have been playing this music after the last band. It’s the perfect goodbye to the audience and celebration of our local fake, modern mythologies. For me, having watched Twin Peaks like 10 times all the way through, this music is instantly "home," even though it's totally fake — a fictional world that feels good to revisit repeatedly.

Pounding Serfs
Pounding Serfs (K)

The Pounding Serfs was this early Anacortes band and one of the first LPs released by K records when they moved up from cassettes. They later became Gravel and the Crabs, formative northwest grunge bands. This came out in 1989. The hit song is "Slightly Salted" and it's about living in this town by the water and "stocking up on woodpiles, getting ready for the storm," and stuff. They mostly played at bonfires and small house parties. The drum set was a cardboard box and a snare drum. One electric guitar, one acoustic. Many voices singing. Authentic early Anacortes folk grunge.

No iTunes link available

Popol Vuh
Fitzcarraldo soundtrack (SPV U.S.)

This is the Werner Herzog movie about the guy pulling a boat over a mountain in the Amazon, with music by a trippy, German band. My favorite parts are the way-over-the-top, monumental arrangements for choir and bass drum. I always aspire to a drum that sounds that big. Did they record it in the Grand Canyon? Did they shoot a cannon at a drum made out of a grain silo? Is the choir one million people? It’s so massive, and it's probably not some kind of studio trick. It really is that massive, kind of like the movie.

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Mount Eerie MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/elverumandsun