Eerie Resurrection: Microphones' Mount Eerie

In light of
Mount
Eerie's
upcoming
CD, I've
excavated
my 2002
Tablet re-
view of
Micro-
phones' Mount Eerie (Phil Elverum oversees both projects).

Microphones, Mount Eerie, K Records [7/10]

K Records may have released Microphones' Mount Eerie, but that doesn't mean it's pop, punk, funk, or folk like many of their releases--or some combination of thereof. It isn't rock either, at least not in the traditional sense of the word.

Instead, this concept album from busy Olympia musician/producer Phil Elverum (Dub Narcotic Sound System, C.O.C.O.) harkens back to late-1960s/early-1970s Europe in the form of England's jazzy Soft Machine and Germany's forward-thinking Krautrock coterie (Can, Faust, Neu!). Some of the pieces even sound like Pink Floyd at their most experimental, but Mount Eerie doesn't quite qualify as psychedelia or prog rock either.

The album is, ultimately, its own strange beast with literally spacey song titles like "Solar System," "Universe," and 17-minute epic "The Sun." Mount Eerie is the first in a trilogy of recordings to be followed by Singing from Mt. Eerie and Drums from Mt. Eerie.

Endnote: Click here for Black Wooden Ceiling Opening review (to be released on 5/27). Image from P.W. Elverum & Sun, Ltd.