Growing up in the shadow of Mt. Erie, the lone peak stretching above Phil Elvrum's hometown of Fidalgo Island, Washington, it was probably easy to imagine it as the highest point in the world, the place where Earth met sky. Mt. Erie is a mere 1,448 ft. at its peak, barely a foothill to Everest, and yet to a child, its summit is stupefying. But in the end, the weight of years pierces the exaggerated perception of youth; there's often a cruel disparity between the remnants of distorted childhood imagery and the onset of adulthood. I don't know what, if anything, a young Elvrum might have imagined in Erie's wilderness, but I'm guessing those memories cast a long shadow.
After his three prior Microphones releases turned out, quite subconsciously, to be about Air, Water, and Fire-- respectively and chronologically-- Mount Eerie is, in Elvrum's words, an album "more consciously about mountains and earth, though it turned out to be more about space." Its nominal peak is naturally at its heart, but only as a caricature plucked from the mind of an over-imaginative young poet, twisted and ominously stretching upward as a bridge to the heavens. Above and below, the album's drama is unveiled as a five-act play in words and music, profound and surreal, made all the more so with its awesome, childlike simplicity. It's a grim myth of revelation, death, and rebirth, but written in crayon, ensuring with its bright colors that all will work out in the end.
Each track serves as a piece in Mount Eerie's continuous, linear story, and many of Elvrum's friends assume roles as the primary cast of characters: Kyle Field (of Little Wings) is Death; Karl Blau represents the birds that pick apart Elvrum's body, and K founder Calvin Johnson gives voice to The Universe itself. Mirah Zeitlyn, Khaela Maricich, Adam Forkner, and Anna Oxygen also make appearances. It's ambitious to say the least, but the contributors are up to the task, executing these whimsically bizarre roles with remarkable sincerity. Music is too often described as "cinematic," but Mount Eerie evokes that exact quality; it's almost possible to envision the sets-- a handcrafted, celestial night sky, a sparse, faux-knoll for Eerie's grassy zenith-- and though crude, they're careful and cared for. The stark sincerity of the performance lends it all a gorgeous, unrefined artistry.
The story begins with "The Sun", where the influence of classical form on this album is immediately apparent; beyond the traditional five-act arc, the music is allegorical. Like Verdi attempting to summon spring with a violin, Elvrum tackles things that are much, much larger than a simple tom, snare, or human voice. "The Sun" opens with the heart-like pulse that concluded The Glow, Pt. 2, gradually and subtly mutating to a more complex rhythm. Soon, a wash of drums fades across the channels, evoking either the rising and setting of our star, or the revolution of Earth. It builds to climax before Elvrum, in touching a capella, relates the story of his birth, whereupon he sights Death on a black ship and flees for the peak of Mt. Eerie. At 17 minutes, the track finally supernovas with a deafening drone and crash of cymbals, before the story advances.
As he scales the mountainside to a delicate acoustic strum, Elvrum "reminisces about a girl gracefully juggling [him as] a planet," and somewhere, distantly, she thinks of him. But as he climbs, day is fading: creepy tympani patterns call forth our timeless fear of night, and a Greek chorus gives voice to these feelings of isolation and worry. It's the voice of the cosmos, staring down at Phil, alone on the mountain peak. The hazy-sweet hum of the night sky is at once reassuring, beautiful, and disturbing, but it all gives way as he glimpses his Death approaching, and resigns himself to his fate: "Soon a big black cloud will come/ Soon a big black cloud will come/ And press you to the ground/ The air will leave your chest/ And you'll fade from where you're found."
The clarity of his apprehension is breathtaking, voiced by those who've shaped the story up to the moment before Death arrives with its primal, percussive bloodlust. Phil dies, and carrion birds leave the peak "empty and windy again." After the cawing, and the hiss of wind has subsided, a second mountain reveals itself, stretching further up into "The Universe"; what once seemed infinite and unknowable to mortal perception-- as abstract as a flat plane of light and darkness-- now deepens into a vast, definite expanse. "But Universe, I see your face/ Looks just like mine/ And we are open wide," Phil sings into space, which echoes his words back to him with a ghostly chorus. A titanic bass drum bellows in the distant reaches, and after his life and death, Phil finds his resting place, at home in the arms of the Universe.
I gave away the ending, but this epic is no mystery; the portents are clear from the beginning, and the listener's job is to take it all in. Excepting the heart-wrenching sight of Death in its title track, Mount Eerie never quite achieves the transcendent, lo-fi glory of The Glow, Pt. 2, but it's no less incredible a spectacle. This is a massive artistic statement from The Microphones, and though it may be cryptic-- even overwhelming at times-- it remains warm and open, thanks to the stunning intimacy that has consistently been the group's hallmark. As the truth and meaning of the universe become manifest, Mount Eerie comforts, illustrating that comprehension isn't as important as acceptance.
