[The New Classics is a reoccurring segment in which we examine our favorite indie releases that are bound to replace our parent’s “classic rock” stash hidden in the attic or the basement. These aren’t reviews, these are uneditied testimonies and opinions about why we love what we love. Can we get a witness?]

Artist: The Mircophones
Album: Mount Eerie
Released: 2003
Label: K Records
Producer: Phil Elvrum

Words by Rick Moslen

Phil Elvrum (The Microphones) played a house show roughly twenty minutes outside of Pittsburgh in 2004. Perhaps you were there—if so, you’d agree that his set complemented the perfect summer evening. The weather was beautiful, and Elvrum sang so delicately to the large shuffle of hip college teens scattered across my friend’s parents’ front lawn that it was nearly embarrassing: the songwriter may have bared a bit too much of his soul in our undeserving presence. Still, the experience deserved a coming-of-age “and that’s when I knew this was going to be the greatest summer of my life” voiceover. The next day I scrambled to Paul’s CD’s to purchase another Microphones’ disc—his newest, most challenging CD:Mount Eerie.

The Microphones / II. Solar System
The Microphones / IV. Mt. Eerie

Mr. Elvrum is part of the Olympia-based K Records family. After years of Beat Happening dinner parties, poker games with Old Time Relijun, and group orgies with Talulah Gosh (well…maybe not), he began recording solo as The Microphones in 1998. Six albums in and The Microphones ended by Elvrum switching his moniker to Mount Eerie (to reiterate, he was still The Microphones when both the album and song “Mount Eerie” came out—I know it’s confusing). The transition was similar to Smog’s title-change to a more-logical Bill Callahan or Sean Combs’ switch from Puff Daddy to P. Dirty or P. Dizzle or whatever the hell he calls himself.

It’s fitting to view Mount Eerie as a symphony—an opera—a musical—or an overly elaborate campfire story. The album’s five tracks unify to explore a singular narrative. The guest vocalists throughout all have specific characters they represent (Calvin Johnson as The Universe is a personal favorite)—much like a musical. At first listen you might become that embarrassed friend during the opera’s intermission who has no idea what just happened the last 20-minutes plot-wise on stage, but that’s ok! I won’t recite the album’s story in detail; that’s where liner notes (or Wikipedia) come in handy.

What you need to know is that it’s an album about birth, life, and death—yeah, I know, what album isn’t these days? What makes the album intriguing yet discomforting is that the music doesn’t sound like a group of friends jamming songs in a studio. It’s as if the music gods (or some other higher power) created a somewhat definitive musical soundtrack to life’s most-essential events: one’s birth process (“I. The Sun”), one’s death (“IV. M.t Eerie”), and one’s descent up to heaven or the afterlife (V. The Universe) and documented them on Pro Tools. It’s similar to Sesame Street writers creating a song to musically represent the letter “A” or the number “27” but on a much deeper level.

Party music this is not. It doesn’t even make for decent road trip jams, unless it’s one of those self-reflective Faulkner-like pilgrimage trips. The album never feels even remotely pretentious though. As intense as the music gets, it’s just as likely one’s first reaction to be, “woah, those drums sounded pretty cool,” which is perfectly fine.

Speaking with Mr. Elvrum that perfect summer evening, I asked if he was staying in Pittsburgh for the night before trekking on. He gently remarked that he plans to sleep in his truck (which was parked near the thick woods at end of the road). Citing Pittsburghers’ hospitality and reminding him that plenty here can gladly host him for the evening (I was living outside of Pittsburgh, so I couldn’t), he smiled and thanked me for my concern, but because of his early morning departure, he didn’t want to impose. That night it stormed—like a crazy Roland Emmerich 2012 CGI-ed thunderstorm. So Mr. Elvrum slept in his truck—in the woods—all alone—surrounded by the screaming rain—in the middle of a one-person cross-country tour. It then hit me like a ton of bricks: sleeping in a truck in the woods, thousands of miles from home, all by oneself, on nights like this are the conditions needed to write an album like Mount Eerie. Only in that forlorn lifestyle can someone write such pleading lyrics as, “I know you’re out there/ your swaying and please. I know you’re out there/ your vultures and trees. I know you’re out there / your mountainous peaks. “Don’t let gravity win / Blow on me solar wind. I know you’re out there” on “II. Solar System,” which could be the greatest Microphones song.

While listening to Mount Eerie, you’ll become the lone touring musician: traveling by yourself across the country; bearing your soul in front of undeserving audiences nightly; seeking slumber in your lonely truck in the middle of the woods surrounded by a pissed-off mother nature. It may sound like a lonely listen, but the album is a blast, and following its forty minutes, you’ll stand up and get on with the rest of your day with an extra ounce of fulfillment.

Mount Eerie’s a wilder and crazier ride than Dante’s Peak, Race to Witch Mountain, Cold Mountain, Vertical Limit, and Brokeback Mountain combined (and you can throw Cliffhanger in there too even though John Lithgow’s pretty badass in that movie).

If Ricky’s description has sparked your interest, head over to Insound and pick up this operatic journey of an album.

Filed under: New Classics, Not Blake, Jim, or Brendan