Night Palace - Mount Eerie

Mount Eerie

The new Mount Eerie record was extremely centering to me this weekend. It was released four days before a consequential Presidential election, though I'm confident the timing was not intentional. Music recorded inside the Elverum house in Anacortes, Washington could hardly be further from the turmoil brewing in Washington D.C. If there is any politics in the music of Mount Eerie, it's indirect. A plea for us all to touch grass. Go outside and listen to the wind in the trees and the birds squawking with each other. 

There is one plausible alternate universe where in the mid-2000's I moved to Seattle instead of New York. When I listen to Phil Elverum's music, it helps me to understand why. The fuzz of the electric guitars, mixed with the brightness of the acoustic, all wrapped in heavy reverb and occasionally punctuated by heavy metal drumming — I feel enveloped in mountain fog under towering pine. And I like it. I like it a lot. 

This record is messy. It's noticeably one of his least cohesive records, and quite long. Even so, it has a charm that carries it through. And if you know the tragedy of his recent biography — the death of his wife in 2016 — then you might understand this record as picking up the threads of his previous work. His previous three albums dealt with the grief and sorrow thrust upon him. With Night Palace, he's asking himself, "Now where was I?" He's talking to birds more than he used to, he says. I had always imagined he talked to birds plenty. So maybe this is Elverum singing about knowing himself. Returning to himself. 

As for the recordings, there's more pop in them than I recall from previous Microphones or Mount Eerie albums. Not a lot of pop, but more than once I thought, "This track could almost fit on a Blur record, or Stereolab, or Yo La Tengo." These moments are nice surprises. Like finding something really funny while on a walk in the woods. I hope it portends new terrain for him to explore on future records.

There are a lot of nice grooves to be found, spread out across the album. Lots of humming buried in distorted guitar. Crisp, glowing, golden acoustic guitar. White noise collage. A few minor cameos of electric drums or synths. All the things you hope to hear from an Elverum record are here. It's going to be well received by critics, even if it isn't dropped onto Best of The Year lists. I recommend it.

The recordings are close. Best heard in headphones. Elverum's recordings are intimate. They are art made for himself, and I'm grateful he shares them with the rest of us. I think he's one of the more important artists of my generation in that he creates work that proves we aren't all totally addicted to our phones all the time. Sometimes some of us go outside and appreciate the nature around us. Sometimes, we do pull ourselves away from our work and our obsessions and our chores and we escape into something bigger. I'm thankful to Elverum that he provided that to me for a few hours this weekend.

Blur - Blur

Blur

This is a review of this album.

Pirates And Farmers - Dave Hickey

Dave Hickey

I'm enthralled with people who have lived long, multiple lives. I also love hearing from people brave enough to let go of life, take risks, do drugs, fear nothing. Life, for these people is a joy ride. And while their shoot-from-the-hip writing might be a little off balance and off-target, I tremendously appreciate them for being present and alive. Dave Hickey is this kind of writer. It's hard to say what he is, really, but right now he's mostly a professor and a writer, I guess. He was once a journalist, once an art dealer, once a songwriter. He's chummy with many of the most nefarious and interesting people from the last half-century. And he has a lot of opinions about a lot of things.

I happen to agree with so many of those opinions that I often wonder if I'm not being charmed out of my wits. I've read his other books Air Guitar and The Invisible Dragon, and now I've read Farmers and Pirates, and I think this one is my favorite. It covers a lot of ground, and has its high's and low's. But mostly it's Hickey being Hickey, and it's mostly about taste. Which is to say, there is a lot in here about having opinions, not being afraid of having opinions, and definitely not being shy about them either. I almost want to call it a motivating collection, but it's more demanding than that. More or less, this book says to you, "Have a fucking opinion. And make it count." I've often been guilty of swallowing deeply held beliefs for being inconvenient. Hickey is a good, much needed kick in the ass for combating that problem. I'll keep reading him.

In addition to this, he, above any other writer, has shown light on my soured attitude towards art. There was a time when I thought of myself as an artist. Never a very good one, but still an artist. And I loved art. But I quickly learned I did not like the art world. It seemed to me an essential spark had been extinguished, and the culture around art was very visibly rotting. I couldn't put my finger on exactly why, though -- I was only in my mid-twenties, young and naive. This is where Dave Hickey comes in for me. He put all the pieces in place for understanding what happened and why and how art creation will never really be the same. 

But still, there's taste. You're free to like what you like. You just can't change the nature of the world, so plan accordingly.