Mount Eerie, Black Wooden EP [Southern]
Reviewed by: Cooper Foyt
I’ll start this review off with a couple of brief histories. The concept behind the Latitudes series from Southern Records is to snatch up whichever artist they like and is passing through town, bring them in to their studio, and give them anywhere from a few hours to a few days to create something unique to that moment. They take their inspiration from the seminal Peel Sessions and are attempting to carry on the torch of one-off recordings.
Mount Eerie is the current pseudonym for Washington-native experimental-folk artist Phil Elverum who used to go by The Microphones, ditching the name in 2003 for something more natural. The change was more than titular, however, as with the new name came a new sound, doing away with the sprawling, roughly stitched together experimental songs in favor of a simple acoustic sound. After a few years of EPs filled with rehashed songs, an album of duets with Julie Doiron, Lost Wisdom, and a year later the black metal influenced Wind’s Poem, we reach the current release. Phil’s Latitude session came between these last two albums, and the songs seem to suffer from a bit of an identity crisis because of it.
“Black Wooden” opens up the album with a plodding acoustic guitar with a heavier distorted guitar echoing it, eventually splintering off into fractured riffs. The name of the track comes from Phil’s attempt at creating a newish genre of more organic metal, which would later be the backbone of Wind’s Poem. Images of nature float in and out of the song poetically, mostly obscured by distortion. You get a good sense for the environment of where the song was originally written, a dilapidated cabin in some Scandinavian forest at dusk, and Elverum does an excellent job as always of creating a contemplative mood through repetition. This is your by the book Mount Eerie song.
In the long tradition of Phil Elverum to reinvent old material, a few tracks from previous releases show up here; another look at Lost Wisdom’s “If We Knew” and Black Wooden Ceiling Opening’s “Appetite”. “If We Knew” loses the harmonized vocals of Julie Doiron but in the process gains some immediacy. Elverum’s take is a bit deeper in sound which gives it a more assured sound and the revelations of “We would not be so scared of losing hair and slowing down/If we knew that our hearts are not aging/Our little hearts are born already ancient” feels more like a conclusion gained through introspective thought rather than other-worldly evasive knowledge which Doiron’s haunting vocals created. “Appetite” trades in grandiose, thundering riffs for a softly strummed, breathy performance which foregoes any of the over-the-top theatrical crescendos of the original. In both cases it’s hard to really say if the new takes are any better or worse than the originals, just that they are different, and that the lyrics are a little easier to hear.
The highlight of the EP comes on “Marriage” which is a rearranged version of Lost Wisdom’s “O My Heart” with some additional lines sprinkled in. The interplay of the guitars throughout the entire track is exciting (listen in around 3:05 for some chill-down-the-spine shredding) and flirts with the possibility of Phil creating something akin to classic rock via Built to Spill. When the distortion peels back momentarily for the line “O my heart/is this my heart?/And is it thumping?” a transcended moment is stumbled upon.
Finishing with the day-dream inspired and inducing “Mount Eerie Revealed” the EP comes to a quiet end. The puzzling part of this Latitude session is how it somehow fails to offer anything wholly unique or imaginative. Phil has been reworking his own catalog like this for years without the help of Southern and there isn’t a trace of the old experimental side of The Microphones here. The tracks simply come off as pleasant between-pieces of an artist dabbling in a new sound that isn’t all that new at this point. Some slack should be given considering the session was recorded in an afternoon on a borrowed guitar, but one can’t help feeling that an opportunity for something really interesting was missed here by all parties involved.
Rating: 72%