Crate Digging is our recurring series that delves into music history to feature several albums that every music fan should know about. In this edition, Mount Eerie's Phil Elverum lists 10 albums perfect for playing while cooking and dining.
Phil Elverum has a bit of a reputation for being, as he put it, a “devastating guy, the weight of the world, who writes these songs of death.” In fact, through his recording projects The Microphones and Mount Eerie, he has delivered some of the most heartbreaking and deeply moving indie music in recent decades, whether it be the pair of albums he released after his wife's tragic passing (A crow looked at me and now only) or his contemplative return to The Microphones (aptly titled Microphones in 2020). While his latest crop of songs, Night Palaceis so introspective, existential, and poetic, it also reveals Elverum once again as the playful, deconstructive experimentalist he always was.
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“I'm actually quite a joking guy,” he explains. Consequence. “So, there are jokes on this album. It's big picture, serious stuff, mundane stuff, deep stuff and jokes. I just wanted it to be representative of real life, of the whole spectrum… I have this ideal of saying great things or exploring the great mystery of existence and also smiling during it. Like the recognition of the absurdity of existence: it's funny.”
Among softly sung descriptions of mornings in naturalistic settings and reflections on what it means to walk the earth, there are references to The Big Lebowski and word games inspired by I think you should go with Tim Robinson (a program that Elverum admits “changed the way [he] think about language.
The sounds of Night Palace they are equally interested in playing, switching between different tones and instruments from one tune to another or often within the individual songs themselves. Unlike Mount Eerie's last album, the most acoustic and concise Lost Wisdom, pt. 2, Night Palace It has everything from black metal-inspired guitars to trap-influenced top hats. Its sprawling nature even caused the composer's friends to compare it to Elverum's much-celebrated 2001 effort. The Shining, pt. 2.
“There are rises and falls, unlike other albums that are a little shorter or more stuck on one idea,” he says. “This and The Shining, pt. 2 I have many different ideas that are carried out. It's more of a narrative. More like… God, I hate the word 'journey', but I can't think of a better word than 'journey'. It goes from A to B, to C, to D and to E.”
To celebrate Elverum's latest (ahem) trip, he sat down with us to share 10 records he plays while cooking and dining, a sacred moment in the Elverum household.
“In our house, dinner lasts like two or five hours or something like that, you know? We stretch it and I love it,” he explains. “We never heat something in the toaster and eat it in the sink and go to other rooms. “I’m really interested in collecting it.”
Put on your kitchen apron and listen to “Broom of Wind” by Mount Eerie's Night Palace below, and read on to learn the 10 albums that Phil Elverum soundtracks your dinner party.
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