Released in fall 2002, when Mount Eerie mastermind Phil Elverum was still calling himself the Microphones, the first Song Islands singles collection has proven a sort of signpost in Elverum's vast sonic journey. Breaking from the dense, craggy, world-beating noise-folk that marked his LPs-- particularly the towering The Glow Pt. 2-- Song Islands was an unusually naked affair that offered new insights into the makings of an Elverum production while, at its best, frequently pulling the focus squarely on the songs rather than their embellishments. The LPs that would follow Song Islands-- the impossibly huge Mount Eerie, the lopsided No Flashlight-- failed to reach the heights of Elverum's earlier work, and he seemed to retreat further into his art, issuing numerous singles and EPs, exploring genres, and releasing lavish coffee-table books with records that often felt secondary. The proliferation of individual pieces-- often with similar names, typically attached to curious-on-paper concepts-- has made it a near impossibility to keep up with Elverum, more creatively restless than ever. We needed an overview.
Instead, we're presented with another volume of Song Islands: Thirty-some tracks, primarily unreleased, covering everything from raw alternate takes of recent works to wormy 1970s AM pop castoffs. It's a lot to take in, as a retrospective of such a monstrous catalog ought to be. But the territory Song Islands Vol. 2 attempts to chart is simply too vast-- nearly a decade's worth of diversions-- to cover in 80 minutes' time. The nature-kid proselytizing, the scabrous drums and stalactite guitars, the existential anguish-- it's all here. But Elverum's always at his best when the songs feel sewn into their surroundings; the songs from Song Islands 2 seem plucked piecemeal from the archives, divorced from the bursts of inspiration that birthed them. Elverum's refusal to sit still these past few years has resulted in some breathktaking music, no doubt, but laid out like this, it also makes for a scattershot listen
We begin with "Where?", a scene-setting bit of folk that immediately lays out Elverum's post-Glow 2 identity crisis: "Mount Eerie is nowhere/ Mount Eerie is playing tonight." From there, Song Islands slips into the Carpenters homage of "Calf in Pasture" (less grim than it sounds), the percussive drone of "The Intimacy", then the more typical Elverum wayfarer "I Whale". Each has its charms, but due to their clipped construction-- most songs hover around the two-minute mark-- and the record's pacing-averse genre-hopping, Song Islands never establishes the internal rhythms and deliberate dynamic shifts that mark his best work. There's little apparent order to the tracklist; a chronological sequence might've explained the odd pacing and would've offered up a little more insight into Elverum's evolution over the last several years, but these tunes almost seem picked out of a hat. It's hardly a best-of; the tender, searching "Wooly Mammoth's Mighty Absence", certainly on anyone's shortlist for the single best Elverum song in a decade, is conspicuously AWOL, making room for directionless ambient interludes ("Heart Lake at Night"), sketchbook remnants ("Voices in Headphones [Singers]") and half-formed, heart-on-sleeve strums (take your pick). Roughhewn tone pieces sit next to barren folk laments, only occasionally meeting in the middle; his sonic palette, one of the richest in indie rock, often feels pared down to a few basic elements, and while Song Islands 2 covers a great deal of ground, rarely do these songs reach the hushed intimacy or thunderous calamity of Elverum's more elaborate productions.
"In Moonlight" gets it right, moving from a meandering solo Phil to a powerful, sweeping crescendo; it's one of the few numbers here that feels more like a proper song than a thumbnail sketch. "Get Off the Internet" may be cloying-- whether it's imploring you to take out the garbage or doing it to the tune of "We Are the World"-- but it's at least memorable. And Elverum's still quick with a well-placed Waldenism that'll cut you to the core; "when was the last time you touched a leaf?," he asks, and you'll keep wondering about. But, caught up amongst the flotsam of Song Islands 2, moments like these are far too fleeting.
