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Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams revealed in a cover story Vanity Fair published Thursday (July 26) that she had married "serenely" the singer-songwriter Phil Elverum, known for his recording and performance. Microphones and Mount Eerie. Originally from Anacortes, Washington, Elverum previously worked in the sphere of Olympia's K Records collective before starting his own label and distro, P.W. Elverum & Sun, Ltd. And the discography that he has accumulated since the mid-90s is both cinematic and intimate. Dive into any era or disc, and you can recover from an acoustic meditation on mortality, a roaring black metal guitar or a drone that's miles on.
The results would be more than enough for any author to hat on, be it front-back clbadics like 2001 The Glow, Pt. 2 or more inaccessible curiosities like 2005 & # 39; s No flashlight: songs of the night accomplished . Yet the unexpected tragedy was ahead – and he probably split his work in two.
Elverum's 13-year-old cartoonist and musician, Geneviève Castrée, died in 2016 after a diagnosis of inoperable pancreatic cancer, an incalculable loss that appears immediately in her subsequent album, A Crow Looked Me Me . Recorded silently, acoustically, in the center of sorrow, using the instruments of his late wife in the room where she held her last breath, she resounded as her most courageous, personal and courageous work.
From these dark songs began an unexpected commercial rise. Suddenly, the songwriter appeared in The New York Times GQ and the Marc Maron WTF? Podcast. To catch one of Elverum's live shows surrounding Crow and his follow-up even better Now Only was a strange and discordant show. Chances are you have not paid the ticket price for an evening of molbades songs on, among other things, throwing away the toothbrush of your deceased spouse.
In a career of self-reinvention, Elverum found a new voice, this time facing tragedy that could easily have ended a person. And his new and prominent marriage will surely bring a whole new audience to his incredible work. Here are eight excellent leads to start your dive into the Elverum songbook
The Microphones – "The Pull" (from It was hot, we stayed in the water 2000) [19659002] The early works of Elverum as The Microphones are quite inaccessible, collagist stuff, mainly reflecting a mind eagerly interested in exploring the boundaries of sound, melody and sound with ordinary instruments and recording equipment. His first big album, The Microphones & # 39; was hot, we stayed in the water is where the light shines first. The nylon strings papyrus and the guitar fuzz of this album, "The Pull", sum up the idiosyncratic and exploratory approach of Elverum in 2000.
] The Microphones – "Headless Horseman" (From The Glow, Pt. 2 2001)
A sequel to a song that ended up being an entire album, The Glow, Pt. 2 is the first clbadic stone Elverum to be delivered to K Records in 2001. Almost anything that a new listener might like about The Microphones is depicted on this one – ballads lonely, bristling noise, wild and strange mixtures everywhere.In the midst of all this noise, the delicate "Headless Horseman" remains his best breakthrough ballad: "If you're balancing again, I'll stoop / And wish you luck. "
Microphones -" Do not smoke "(from Do not smoke / do not quit Internet 7 ", 2007)
Although hard times are its recent business practices, the former Elverum home of K Records, at its peak, represented a radical community spirit with strong principles of self-improvement.These themes appear in some tunes of Elverum. "Do not Smoke" was released as a double A -side in 2007 with the equally hilarious "Get Off the Internet" .The first is his Minor Threat moment, he unleashes and chides on ripping power chords.
Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron and Fred Squire – "Lost Wisdom" (from Lost Wisdom 2008)
2008 & # 39; s Lost Wisdom was a quick collaboration between Elverum, guitarist Fred Squire and singer Julie Doiron, literally the result of a productive tour. Despite – or because of – his sober and uncluttered frame, Wisdom is one of Elverum's most captivating works to date. Part of the reason is camaraderie: Doiron was the singer of Eric's Trip, a cult Canadian band that Elverum frequently cited at the time as his number one influence. The two could almost not click better; the title track is a hymnal, a sound meditation on waves and decomposition and mortality.
Mount Eerie – "Ocean Roar" (from Ocean Roar 2012
The excellent pair of albums from Elverum of 2012, Clear Moon and Ocean Roar allowed him to extend to new corners of his sound. The clattery, dense Roar is the best of both, containing some of its strangest, foggy, and even rare cover: "Engel Der Luft" by Popol Vuh from the movie Herzog Fitzcarraldo . ] Roar majestically evokes haze and fog and swells everywhere, but it's just as powerful when he backs down, the woozy title track, adorable is a respite from the storm.
Mount Eerie – "Pumpkin" (from Sauna 2014) [19659002] Elverum describes the Sauna unjustly neglected of 2014 comm e "Mount Eerie's ultimate album" in his press release – and there is something to that. Indeed, Sauna gasps and whistles at its borders, sometimes exploding at Wagnerian levels or suddenly, reducing itself unpredictably. "Pumpkin" is a good example of this, with some lyrics on the walk to the bookstore and watching a piece of pumpkin among the rocks and sea moss, reaching peaks in the music. There was hardly any place where the Mount Eerie project could go from the Sauna Ambition ;
Mount Eerie – "Swim" (from A Crow Me Watched 2017) [19659002] A Crow M & # 39; is the most devastating collection of songs Elverum has ever written – and his most critically acclaimed release to date. Gone is something grandiose or philosophical, in favor of disturbing portraits of Elverum's life after the death of his first wife, Genevieve. The haunting "Swims" contains some of the most existential mic-drops of the entire program – a dying counselor, a question from his toddler daughter – on the electric guitar barely there.
Mount Eerie – "Distortion" (from Now only 2018)
While his predecessor focused on death, A crow looked is essentially an emotional explosion a-and-done, Now Only is a portrait of Elverum a year after the loss. Simply from this distance, it is an even stronger listening: rich, nuanced, uncompromising and dense. For an artist who has evoked such a wide range of reflections, it is a rather unverifiable music, or rather a music that criticizes itself. Just let this 11 – minute ballad unfold and get lost in Elverum 's fight with his past, his present and what to do about death. There is a pregnancy alert and a series of clues about her past in The Microphones and references to Tarzan and Jack Kerouac. Enter his world.
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