In 2008, Phil Elverum's alias Mount Eerie and Julie Doiron teamed up for the collaborative album Lost Wisdom, and this November, they'll follow it up with Lost Wisdom pt. 2. Stream the first single "Love Without Possession" below and read what Elverum wrote about the new album.
What is it about a bonfire?
The flames are charismatic and dance, the sparks billow and flicker off. But what is beneath? In smoldering embers that stay alive until the next morning there is a slow endlessness. The flashing whims of light and dark pass by without stopping, but the glowing coals beneath the action offer a new perspective. Something approaching permanence in the relentlessly impermanent world.
In all these years of making up songs, the aim has always been to just say the thing as directly as possible. Name it, don’t decorate. Nonetheless, what has come out has often appeared as billowing clouds of metaphor and half-formed feelings. Then in the shadow of close real death in 2016 I made a couple of records that managed a little better to speak directly. The terror in opening up so unreservedly to an abstract public was blown away by the higher stakes of actual death.
Nothing stops changing. Love returned. With this love came a new understanding of the weird balances between real life and art projects, between home and exposure. I moved into a new world and happily angled the work inward, keeping more quiet.
But nothing stops changing. It didn’t work out and I had to move again. Finding myself staring into another fire, disoriented by the changes, these songs came out.
I hoped to write songs about the smoldering foundation beneath all of this surface chaos, a love that doesn’t die, songs beyond mere sorrow. If I again mined the circumstances of my life for these words, I tried to do it with liberation in mind for everyone. I tried to make songs that did not rely at all on who I am or who I am singing about. “The song, not the singer” is my guide, even while singing inescapably as and about myself.
Knowing that anyone with internet access might have questions about my specifics, I don’t want to say anything personal that isn’t already in the songs. My fingers are crossed that when I push them out to sea they will be met with calm humane understanding. That’s what they’re about after all.
In a grab for deeper continuity, I called and asked Julie Doiron if she could join me in the recording. She has been my favorite singer since 1993 when I first heard her band Eric’s Trip and subsequently devoted my life to music and art. This 26 year path from teenage obsession to collaborator has made me feel very fortunate. We made another record in 2008 called Lost Wisdom, more flames, more love, more turmoil. Now we get to do some more singing and playing together.
In 2019 life on earth can feel insane, but in the early hours before the sun comes up, I look out and the world is blank. Everyone deserves liberation, and as the sky gets blue and loud with the day I try to remember this blank peace and I hope that it will stay with us into the wild arriving future.
- Phil Elverum
Sept. 5th, 2019
Elverum and Doiron will tour towards the end of the year in support of the new album. (The press release notes these dates will "likely be the only performance of this album’s material for the foreseeable future.") See the tracklist and tour dates below. Lost Wisdom, pt. 2 will be out November 8th via P.W. Elverum & Sun.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Belief”
02 “When I Walk Out Of The Museum”
03 “Enduring The Waves”
04 “Love Without Possession”
05 “Real Lost Wisdom”
06 “Widows”
07 “Pink Light”
08 “Belief pt. 2″
TOUR DATES (with Julie Doiron):
10/29 Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater w/ Big Thief (w/o Julie Doiron)
11/30 Vancouver BC @ Christ Church Cathedral
12/03 Seattle, WA @ The Neptune
12/04 Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
12/06 Sonoma, CA @ Sebastiani Theatre
12/07 Los Angeles, CA @ Masonic Temple at Hollywood Forever
12/08 Minneapolis, MN @ Cedar Cultural Center
12/09 Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
12/10 Columbus, OH @ Via Vecchia
12/11 Toronto, ON @ Great Hall
12/13 Boston, MA @ Arts at the Armory
12/14 Brooklyn, NY @ St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church
12/15 Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Sanctuary
12/16 Washington, DC @ Miracle Theatre
Unpacking the many works of the talented cartoonist, illustrator, and musician, who passed from pancreatic cancer in 2016
Mount Eerie's 2017 album, A Crow Looked at Me, was a stunning and devastating document of loss. On Now Only, Phil Elverum attempts to move on with his life while recognizing the grief that is still -- and will likely always be -- with him.
