MOUNT EERIE
No Flashlight: Songs of the Fulfilled Night
PW Elverum & Sun
· Explorer's map included.
As Mount Eerie and previously as The Microphones, Phil Elverum is the type of audio explorer whose fragile musings have told a grand story from the very beginning. From each seven-inch toss-off through each minute of his albums, the dude has been working towards some grand narrative stream that has evolved to the size and scope of his new namesake.
For No Flashlight, Elverum straddles the extremes of the ramshackle lo-fi noisefests both he and mentor Calvin Johnson have long been noted for, but the focus is most definitely on the quieter side of things. The mandate is set by opener "I Know No One's Admission." "Knowing no one will understand these songs/ I try to sing them clearer/ Even though no one has ever asked/ What does Mount Eerie mean?/ I try to repeatedly explain in complicated song." The music, as always, hides more than it gives up on the surface. A folded-map included with the CD (the biggest, most extensive album art ever?) gives some hints, but much of No Flashlight is up to the listener to decode and the prizes are deeply hidden.
I've been to Mount Eerie itself, on the edge of The Microphones' home-base in Anacortes, Washington and as if by cue our ascent was immediately shrouded in an instant fog. It's a fitting experience to go hand in hand with Elverum's music – amazing views hidden somewhere beyond the murk.
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