DETAILS

Mount Eerie with Woodpigeon, Rural Alberta Advantage & Knots - AA
Central United Church
Thursday, June 25 - Thursday, June 25

More in: Rock / Pop

As it has in previous years, the bill for Sled Island 2009 offers dozens of bands that have the potential to put on utterly mind-melting shows, but one that sticks out is Washington State’s Mount Eerie. Essentially a one-man show starring Phil Elvrum, Mount Eerie’s musical exploits have been setting off alarm bells in critics’ brains since the early ’90s, when Elvrum performed as The Microphones. For many Calgarians, this will be the first chance in a lifetime to see a performer they’ve been listening to for nearly a decade.

To make matters better, it’s a timely visit. After breaking ground with a unique fusion of subdued folk and unforgiving distortion on early albums like The Glow, Elvrum went through a phase of releasing material with a more haunting, ambient tone. While these albums were still excellent, last year’s eardrum-shattering Black Wooden Ceiling Opening EP was a welcome return to form.

“I love distorted bass, it’s probably my favourite sound,” says Elvrum. “I don’t mean just bass guitar, I mean distorted guitar that’s really bassy sounding. It’s pretty much the only sound I like — just variations on that tone. Even the drums, I like them to sound like that.”

It’s hard to sound great loud without genuine songwriting chops to back it up, though, and Elvrum has those in spades. Loud material is unquestionably the cornerstone of his catalogue, but many of the best, heaviest songs emerge from his knack for crafting simple, beautiful melodies. On Lost Wisdom, a recent collaboration with Canuck talents Julie Doiron and Fred Squire, he deconstructed the thrash-tastic “In Moonlight” from the EP, stripping it down to reveal the delicate “O My Heart.”

“It’s pretty organic, the way it happens,” he says of the song-recycling process. “I allow it to happen. I think maybe a lot of people avoid repetition. They try to avoid using the same chords in two different songs, but I like the sort of weird things it can do, being self-referential within a body of work, because it makes everything kind of interconnected and part of one big project.”

This sense of a continuity interwoven with winks and nods is pervasive throughout the Microphones and Mount Eerie repertoire, and it’s nicely complemented by the homemade esthetic of Elvrum’s recent projects. In 2004, Elvrum founded P.W. Elverum and Sun (he added the ‘e’ to be confusing) as an experiment to see if he could release his own music. Placing the highest priority on quality and a personal touch, he packs every order and — to the enduring delight of longtime fans — addresses each package by hand in the same script that adorns his record covers.

“I take a lot of pride in my [pause] livery,” he says with a coy laugh. “I feel like that’s a good solution to the problems that are facing people who are trying to make money off music this day. Not only do-it-yourself, but make it super high-quality, make it a really nice experience to purchase a record. Give people a reason to not just download some MP3s.”

Given that philosophy, it’s more than likely that label business will boom on August 18 with the release of Wind’s Poem, the first dyed-in-the-wool Mount Eerie record in quite some time. Still, while the hand-lettered mail labels and the double-LP clear vinyl gatefold release will certainly add value, the true test will be the tunes that occupy the grooves on those lovely 180g slabs. Will they be a re-visitation of one of Elvrum’s many past musical lives?

“It’s really a beast of its own, it’s not like any of those,” he says. “It’s got super loud parts, but not in a Black Wooden Ceiling Opening way — more like a wall of distortion way. But it’s also got these long, mellow... well, we were really inspired by the music of Twin Peaks, which is really synthesizer heavy but also kind of this weird, dreamy thing.”

That cult TV series’ fictional setting was actually quite similar to Elvrum’s home-town of Anacortes, WA. Located on the small-ish Fidalgo Island near the Canadian border, it’s easy to imagine fans from abroad connecting Mount Eerie’s music with the remote locale and the songwriter delights in playing on the resulting stereotypes.

“I have a love for this place — I’m pretty happy about it and it’s beautiful,” he explains. “But I also like the romanticized version of the Pacific Northwest image, with people wearing logger shirts and it’s always raining and it’s foggy and you’re drinking coffee and eating pie and it’s all grey. I’m into promoting that fictional version as well, working it in. I’m proud of that fake heritage and I’m trying to encourage the illusion that it’s really like that here.”

While this will leave some diehard fans (and at least one writer) wondering which Twin Peaks episode they should watch to best prepare themselves for Mount Eerie’s Thursday night set at the glorious Central United Church, more will likely be interested to know what to expect from Elvrum’s inaugural performance in this city. Will fans be treated to exclusively newer material or can they expect some older fare?

“It’ll probably be mostly new, but I can’t play the songs the way they sound on the album, so they’ll be versions,” he says. “My songs don’t have a very long lifespan for me. I get sick of them pretty quickly. Occasionally, I can work up the enthusiasm to go back, but it’s rare. I’ll give it a shot for Calgary, since I’ve never played there before. I’ve got to start from the beginning.”