Fasten your seatbelts, dear readers, because what you’re going to encounter might be very intense. I am pretty convinced that you never had a chance to listen to something like this. If there was an Olympic medal for transmitting grief into a work of art, the following record would definitely earn it.
The eight album by American author Phil Elverum, the guy who is being the project Mount Eerie, represents another conceptual release with pain and tragedy as the central themes. His wife Genevieve Castree left this world in June last year, and Elverum decided to sublime his grief and sadness into a diary of memories. These memories revolve around last months, weeks and even days he had spent with his beloved wife. The saturation of forlorn affections is so high that it often gets unbearable.
From August to September, the artist composed music in the room where his loved one had spent her last hours, and he used the instruments that belong to her. If this is not the essence of intimacy, I don’t know what it is. The result comes in the form of eleven songs that are sharp, explicit, literal. The lyrics describe struggle, despair and moving on in the manner that is so raw that calling it just raw is an absolute understatement. Continuing life without the loved one never seemed so heartbreaking.
From exhaustingly emotional Real Death that opens the album until the very last one Crow, pessimistic and touching poetry takes over. Heavy verses and words that made my eyes sweat made it hard for me to have a normal day. Attention: this is not for everyone. The songs contain a lot of spoken word sections, and the melody lacks a standard stream, which is fine when you let dolor and ache dictate the conditions. Notes and rhythm can not compare with the meditations Mount Eerie struggled with over the last year.
Music is extremely stripped – guitar, piano and intermittent percussions. Everything is in the service of substantial intimacy and dark lyrical canon of thirty seven years old musician from Washington. A Crow Looked At Me seduces and disturbs at the same time. It is not dedicated for fun and relaxation. Use it accordingly.
