Being a Phil Elvrum fan is torture. Since the remarkable one-two punch of It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water and The Glow, Pt. 2, the boundlessly imaginative singer/songwriter has seemed to intentionally evade the indie rock spotlight, offering vague explanations for his unpredictable actions and flooding the market with limited-edition releases under the Microphones name that more often beguiled than intrigued: Blood and Little Bird Flies into a Big Black Cloud, two handmade 12-inches, featured alternate versions of existing tracks sandwiched between curious sound experiments and song fragments, while the 2002 compilation Song Islands compiled the band's seven-inches and other unreleased material.
In 2003, at the height of this deluge, Elvrum released Mount Eerie, the long-awaited official follow-up to The Glow, Pt. 2. It would be his final studio release under The Microphones guise: a daunting concept album on which the man and his guitar played a diminished role amidst waves of atmospheric noise not far removed from the spotty material that had dotted his odds-and-sods compilations. Here, Elvrum also took a backseat vocally to the album's many players, whose extended vocal turns and character acting made the record's belabored plot a difficult listen for many fans.
Shortly after that record's release, Elvrum announced plans to disband The Microphones altogether. Lacking the grand public unraveling of a full-on crash-and-burn, the move couldn't help but feel somewhat anticlimactic: As excellent as It Was Hot and The Glow were, they were also terribly irresolute, and left Elvrum's legacy uncertain; the records, perhaps for their epic scale and overt ambitiousness, seemed to promise that even greater material could be in store-- for Elvrum to pull the plug just as he began to gain real momentum was a monumental letdown.
That was nearly two years ago. Rather than hunkering down in the studio with a new cast of players, Elvrum has since played vagrant, embarking on circuitous touring spells, here and there dropping the odd sketchy detail about the studio endeavors and future plans of his new group, Mount Eerie. With any forthcoming debut perpetually "in-very-early-progress," it has lately seemed that this band's priorities lie on the road, and that Microphones fans might never receive the satisfaction of a worthwhile successor to The Glow, Pt. 2.
Alas, those Anacortes-based deviants thought they could hide their clandestine labors from us. Mais non: After a year of honing new material in concert, nine tracks have officially made it to tape. Two new studio releases-- the Seven New Songs of Mount Eerie mini-LP and the Two Songs 12"-- document a transitory year for Elvrum and his horde, as well as the devolution and distillation of a persona and sound.
Given a proper studio treatment (and an additional year of practice), Mount Eerie are far more engaging here than on this year's lukewarm Live in Japan. Unsurprisingly, the organic, close-mic'd sound posited on that collection has been reined in by Elvrum's masterful studio touch, allowing the music to retain an unaffected, live-performed spirit without ever sounding sloppy or unfinished. Additionally, the advent of a live band has enabled Elvrum to reconcile two contrary elements of his erstwhile output: a penchant for epic experimentation and a deep understanding of the moving commonality of simplistic folk tunes. Together, these elements coagulate into some of Elvrum's finest moments to date.
The bulk of new material is found on Seven New Songs of Mount Eerie, which provides an impromptu mission statement for a band that's still yet to release a debut full-length. Featuring a half-dozen apparently complete songs, the EP essentially amounts to the meat and potatoes of a Microphones full-length. His presence previously scarce amongst indulgent asides and meandering experimental one-offs (The Glow, Pt. 2 featured only a handful of what can be considered true pop songs), Elvrum has nowhere to hide; his vocals are the focal point of each song, tip-toeing timorously but unfailingly alongside the accommodating instrumental mix.
The minute-and-a-half of delicately strummed chorus guitar melody that opens "Wooly Mammoth's Absence" is just about his longest downtime on the record. After the brittle, unassuming prologue, Elvrum enters, double-tracked and wontedly demure-- and it becomes immediately apparent that nothing much has changed. He coos and mumbles his familiar confessions, but there's still something ineffably engaging about his verses. Elvrum remains a magician of the mundane, and the underlying candor of his compositions still sets him apart from his contemporaries.
But as striking as he is, Elvrum's not acting alone. In fact, because these records are greatly stripped down from The Microphones' dense, studio-abetted sonic milieu, Mount Eerie's members are arguably more invaluable to Seven Songs and Two Songs than The Microphones collective was to Elvrum's previous work. Flitty and vulnerable, Elvrum constantly threatens to dissolve into tape hiss (especially fragile is the somber "With My Hands Out"), and his lo-fi orchestra is all that's there to buttress him. Fortunately, the players are up to the task, ably facilitating Elvrum the way his own amorphous textures once did. Rarely, on either disc, does the band assume a starring role (the anachronistic psych-rock of "November 22nd, 2003, 4:45 PM" is a glaring exception), but their knack for balancing Elvrum's intimacy with an unobtrusive sturdiness is notable.
On Two Songs, they bear an even greater burden, seemingly attempting to simulate expansive Elvrum epics such as "The Glow", to somewhat inauspicious results. The eleven-minute-plus "Fuck the World" shows a more brazen, even somewhat stylized Elvrum. Mount Eerie are dependably tasteful, by turns subordinate and arch, but the song is altogether too dour to sustain its imposing length. Elvrum's frustrated lyrics occasionally permeate the orchestral mix, stauncher than usual. At one point, he seems even to risk breathlessness, belting in a steady stream, "If you think that going camping will undo a long life of slow dying, then go ahead and go camping." Similar moments of uninhibitedness dot the nine-minute "Do Not Be Afraid", which ends with a blissfully defiant chorus. But overall, Two Songs is no match for the better moments on Seven Songs. If the group could somehow reconcile the cut-loose emotionality of the former with the musical appositeness of the latter, Mount Eerie could potentially strike a very winning alchemy.
If Elvrum's minimal aural finagling has bridled the fragmentary orchestra, so too, then, have Mount Eerie harnessed the unpredictable Elvrum. The two are seldom less than a boon for one another, and their collaboration promises to be fruitful. Whether there's another "The Moon" or "The Glow" waiting in the wings remains to be seen, but these records are clearly the fodder Microphones loyalists were yearning for, and cast a faint beacon of hope that Phil Elvrum's best years may yet lie before us.
